Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024. It's been a long and winding road. We're two years into this lamentable government and we finally have this bill in front of the House today. It's an issue that the now minister flagged as a massive priority when he was shadow minister. Like with so much that this government has failed to do, we've seen nothing but hand-wringing from the government on the NDIS for the last two years. But it's good that, at the end of that long and winding road, we can be here today to talk about this bill.

I move the amendment circulated in my name:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes:

(a) the NDIS is supporting the lives of more than 660,000 Australians;

(b) the Coalition's strong record of support for the NDIS;

(c) the former Labor Government grossly mismanaged the establishment of the scheme, including the federal/state responsibilities;

(d) the former Coalition Government recognised the financial pressures facing the NDIS and was committed to working with state and territory governments to address those pressures to ensure the future of the scheme;

(e) ahead of the 2022 election, Labor claimed the scheme was sustainable and ran a shameful scaremongering campaign that the NDIS was at risk and plans were to be cut;

(f) following the election, the Government finally acknowledged the scheme is unsustainable after opposing the Coalition's attempts to put the scheme on a sustainable footing;

(2) calls on the Government to:

(a) release the modelling that underpins the NDIS Financial Stability Framework and the cost savings to be made by this legislation; and

(b) provide a detailed outline of the inevitable cuts that participants should expect as a result of these changes".

I won't go through this amendment in my remarks now. In essence, we've got a very peculiar situation here with this entire bill and, let's be frank, with the rhetoric from this government over the past two years. We know the NDIS has changed lives for the better, with more than 660,000 Australians and their families in some way, shape or form relying on what the scheme is doing. The coalition is very proud of our extremely strong track record in supporting the NDIS, essentially taking it from fewer than 50,000 participants to more than half a million participants in our time in government. We did the real hard work of taking what we inherited in its infancy, with many flaws, let's be frank, and turning it into a viable scheme for more than half a million Australians. We were committed and remain committed to fully funding this scheme. I remember in my time as Assistant Treasurer sitting there with the then Treasurer and never denying the requests from the NDIS minister for more support and more funding to ensure that this demand driven scheme was able to grow to where it grew too.

We know and we inherited a scheme that was underinvested in by the Labor Party. It was a scheme that was established in the chaos of the Rudd-Gillard government, a scheme that had—even as the minister today would concede—agreements with states that were suboptimal from a federal funding perspective. Presumably these agreements were entered into by the then Labor government on the basis that they were much more keen to get a media release out than a viable scheme underway. Notwithstanding all that, the coalition worked hard to take the vision of proponents and actually turn it into some form of reality.

In that time, however, the coalition did often make the point, and have made the point to this day, that the scheme has to be sustainable and that the scheme's very future for people with disabilities and their families will rely on the scheme remaining sustainable. We spoke about that in government, and we were absolutely criticised by the then opposition about talking about sustainability.

In opposition, the now minister stood in the way, day after day, of coalition attempts to put the scheme on a sustainable footing. The now minister accused us in the coalition of 'pearl-clutching kabuki theatre,' claiming the NDIS was 'tracking just as predicted' and that the coalition was 'hyping fictional cost blowouts'. While he was a shadow minister, he also said, 'You can't move around the corridors of parliament in Canberra without tripping over a coalition minister whispering the scheme is unsustainable.' I'm here to tell you today that is a lie, another quote from the minister. He spent his time in opposition blocking every single attempt from the former coalition government to do some of the work that is now contained in this bill. He went to the election and said, 'None of that's necessary. The scheme is on track. It's tracking as predicted. There are no cost blowouts and there are no sustainability issues. It's just those terrible Liberals talking about it.' Then, the minute he got elected, the message changed overnight. All of a sudden, this scheme that was tracking just as predicted, according to this minister, was on an unsustainable footing and needed to be reined in. Now we find ourselves here today.

Further, in the lead up to the election, the minister tried to argue that the former coalition government made cuts to the NDIS. We know you can't trust Labor when they talk about cuts. It's sort of in the bottom draw of every claim they try to make. Even though the coalition rescued the scheme by investing, at that time, $157.8 billion to support more than 550,000 Australians with a disability. So that's the great hypocrisy of it all.

I think every advocate and every person in the disability sector knows that what shadow minister Shorten said before the election was entirely the opposite of what Minister Shorten has said since he's been in government. And now we find this bill—the culmination of his arguments that the scheme is not on a sustainable footing. You'd think in two years a minister who felt as though the scheme wasn't on a sustainable footing, that the scheme needed to be reined in and costs reduced, as he's argued consistently. I mean, give him credit. Since the election the minister has been very consistent. He's had one thing to say about the NDIS, which is that it's got to be reined in: spending's got to be reduced, and ultimately the only way to make it sustainable is to reduce the number of people who get access to the scheme and reduce the amount that people on the scheme are entitled to. He's been very consistent about that. But when you are the minister you have to do things. You actually have to make changes. You can't just diagnose problems forever. The minister's very good at diagnosing problems. He's failed to make the transition from opposition to government, where, once you get into government, your job is to not just diagnose problems but actually fix them.

The minister talks a lot about abuse of the scheme. Well, abuse of the NDIS has got worse on his watch. Abuse by people with the ill intention of defrauding the scheme has gone into overdrive since this minister has been in the big chair. It's not something he spoke that much about before the election but it's gone into overdrive. We've learned through a number of Administrative Appeals Tribunal cases what some claimants have been arguing for under this minister's framework. There are people who go to the AAT and claim that, under the NDIS, taxpayers should fund some of the following: botox treatments, Thermomixes, horseriding, a swimming pool, tai chi, sexual therapy and sex workers, and round-the-world trips. And it's all getting worse on this government's watch.

In fact, through Senate estimates and a number of different forums, we've asked the minister to rule out the use of prostitutes under the NDIS. Under schemes such as the NDIS, Australian taxpayers should not be footing the bill for prostitutes. I don't know why it's so difficult for the minister to come out and say, 'Yes, we're going to ensure that doesn't happen, because, in the end, we are custodians of taxpayers' money.' Taxpayers unequivocally support the NDIS and are willing to support the tens of billions of dollars—$40 billion—that it costs to run the NDIS, provided that the money is used wisely. I'm not going to sit up here and cast moral judgement on people, but, if you want to use prostitutes, don't use taxpayers' money to pay for it. I hear the guffawing over there. I don't know why it's so difficult for the Labor Party to agree with that.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's at your hypocrisy, in saying you're not going to morally judge people.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members opposite are more than welcome—there are plenty of opportunities for you—to speak in this debate, Member, and, when you do, I encourage you to get up and argue for why the NDIS and scheme plans should be used to fund prostitutes. I encourage you to do that, because we'll get the footage, clip it up and send it around the country, and we'll see what your constituents think about that. Maybe there are some who think that that's a very wise use of money.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You guys are obsessed with sex. Go and see a therapist about the problem!

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Maybe the member thinks it's a very wise use of money. On this side of the House we don't. I suspect that, unlike the member interjecting, many of his colleagues would be sitting there right now going: 'Mate, that's not the fight to pick.' But if that member wants to do so, I'm very happy for him to.

We see a scheme that's now out of control. We've seen wait times double since this government came to power. The minister hand-picked the CEO of the NDIS. We remember the minister absolutely running down the former CEO of the NDIS—really unprincipled attacks on a good man. He's pulled in his own, hand-picked bureaucrat from the Andrews government bureaucracy—that glorious shining light on the hill the Andrews Labor government bureaucracy—who is now running the NDIS. Surprise, Surprise! Guess what's happened? Wait times have doubled. We now see the payment system overnight—I receive messages overnight from many individuals—under the scheme has dropped out again, so people won't be paid for 24 or 48 hours.

The scheme and the agency is being run into the ground by this government, and they've been there for only two years. Boy, what could we have done in the last two years? It has taken them two years to get this bill before the House today, and may I say there's a long way for this bill to go. While we won't stand in the way of this bill in the House today, we will ultimately reserve judgement on this following the Senate committee inquiry, which is being conducted with the requirement that the Senate committee have an opportunity to examine all of the different issues with the bill, and that they have sufficient time to have each of the relevant stakeholders and agencies provide evidence—because the litany of concerns with this bill are very long. In some respects it looks like a rushed bill, but how on earth could a bill be rushed when you've had two years to do something? This was supposed to be a high priority of this government. We're two years in.

Here are some of the concerns raised by stakeholders—not to mention them all, because I would take up my entire time if I did that. It's not clear from the bill what a participant can do if they don't agree with an outcome of a needs assessment. This particular stakeholder said: 'The NDIA decisions are notorious for being inconsistent and variable. There doesn't appear to be an avenue for review.' Wow! The second concern raised by stakeholders is: 'The new definition says the NDIS will only fund eight categories of supports. These are based on selected elements out of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. However, by leaving out other elements of that convention, the bill excludes some supports from NDIS funding. For example, the convention recognises the right to live where a person chooses and with who they choose, as well as rights to work in employment. However, this bill does not appear to include supports that would specifically facilitate a participant's economic participation.'

The review recommendations contain a range of numerous contentious recommendations. The drafting of the bill lacked opportunity for consultation. This is what one stakeholder said: 'Our position and those we represent is that without examination and scrutiny of the full and complete proposed changes the bill would deliver a result in the future that looks akin to Frankenstein's monster. Participants, their families and providers would be scrambling to have fair and equitable access to the scheme and supports they need.' Another stakeholder said: 'What is and is not an NDIS support must not be so strict as to allow a participant to explain why it is reasonable and necessary for requested support to be funded.' The APTOS will be incorporated as an interim measure to determine what is and is not an NDIS support, yet it has been widely recognised that APTOS has failed. There are also no provisions around providers of last resort.

Another stakeholder said: 'There's still a lot of work to do to develop a method for more consistently assessing and determining funding levels for housing and living supports. The approach to providing participants with funding incrementally must not be rigid. Participants should still get what they need when they need it, and not be punished for having exhausted their funding, particularly for very valid and reasonable reasons.' Another damning statement from stakeholders was: 'There has been a lack of a co-design approach to developing the bill. It's unclear who has been consulted in its development. Some disability representative organisations were apparently consulted. However, non-disclosure agreements were in place. The bill makes multiple references to co-design, yet the bill was not open for public consultation, which comes back to a lack of transparency, fairness, compassion and accountability.'

Just to stay on that point for a moment, this Prime Minister came to office, saying: 'We are going to be an open, transparent and accountable government. We are going to let the light shine in.' There has been a worrying trend with this government—and it seems almost uniform—in their consultations, and that's the use of non-disclosure agreements. If they're genuinely consulting with the sector, but the sector can only find out or be consulted on the basis that it agrees—presumably by fear of prosecution by the government not to tell anybody about it—how on earth will that be genuine consultation? NDAs, non-disclosure agreements, have not been a feature of genuine consultation with the federal government, but they're an Albanese government feature. It will be written that NDAs became a feature of government consultation under a Labor government: 'You can consult with us. We'll tell you a little bit about it, provided you don't talk to anybody else, you don't consult your members, if you're a representative organisation, and you don't air or ventilate some of the questions.' That's not genuine co-design. They can call it co-design, but if they're hand-picking and selecting who they supposedly consult with, and those people are unable to share that information with counterparts, peers or even their own members—if they're a representative organisation—then that's not co-design and that's not consultation. That's a very worrying feature of this government. Let's be frank: you only get people to sign NDAs when you're trying to hide something. NDAs are not there if you're proud of the product that you're consulting on. NDAs are there if you're concerned, or if you want to hide something from the Australian public.

There's a litany of issues with this bill. We've now had the minister concede that he was wrong before the election. Before the election—again, when he said that the NDIS, 'was tracking just as predicted,' and that the coalition was hyping up fictional cost blowouts—he was either genuinely ignorant of the truth, which is possible, or he deliberately deceived the entire disability sector, community and NDIS participants when he made those statements, knowing they were incorrect. In the end, I'll leave that for Australians to judge: was the minister ignorant of the issues with the scheme or was he deliberately deceiving the people he is now purportedly representing as minister? I like the minister, so I'm not going to answer that question. But I think it's fairly obvious, given his form, what the answer to that question is. I think, unlike him, that this coalition opposition is not going to use the more than 600,000 Australians with a disability and their families as some kind of political football or some kind of opportunity to embarrass the government. They are Australians who deserve honesty; they're Australians who are realistic and who understand the strengths and weaknesses of the scheme. They're the best people to turn to when you need answers as to what to do next, which is why it's so disappointing that this minister has ignored those people—that he has not consulted with them and has not engaged with them. It's as if this government and the minister have gone into the bunker and decided: 'We're going to reverse our position from before the election. We're going to do the opposite of what we said before the election, so let's put the flak jackets on, get into the bunker and just do this—not consult intelligently, fairly, openly and transparently with the people on whom these changes will most significantly impact.' In doing so, there's huge anxiety now, and I think that's a fundamental error that this minister has made. The suspicion and concern that are now faced by many participants and their families, I think, are a direct response not just to the mixed messages from saying one thing before an election and another thing afterward but also to the minister and the government's thought processes. One obvious example that is raised with me all the time is parents with children with ASD or developmental delay.

Let's be frank. If someone is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in this country—often, if you're fortunate, it's been diagnosed early for a young child—their parents have nowhere to go other than the scheme. They've got nowhere to go other than the NDIS because this minister, when he signed the deals with the states or when he agreed the scheme with the states in its first iteration when he was a minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments, had no forethought as to what the consequences would be. And guess what the consequences were. State governments completely withdrew all of their services. The framework of supports that was there for children with developmental delay or ASD was completely gone. He's got to wear that. The minister has to wear that. He can't say, 'I'm the architect of the scheme, but I was only the architect of the good bits, not the bad bits.' He wears that.

Those parents of a child with ASD, developmental delay or a range of other disabilities have nowhere else to go than the NDIS, so, when the minister says, 'We're going to transition those children out of the NDIS and co-fund with the states supports for those participants under the scheme,' quite rightly the families and particularly the parents of those children say, 'Well, we want to know what you're promising us before you transition us out of the scheme, thank you very much, because we've seen what the promises from this minister mean before an election compared to after an election.' Before an election, there are no issues with the NDIS. It is tracking just as predicted. There are no cost blowouts. Post the election, that's all he talks about. The scheme's unsustainable and has to be reined in. So those families are understandably nervous and have anxiety. Again, I think that's exacerbated by the fact that so much of what's contained in this bill and the government's response to the Bonyhady review has been cloaked in secrecy and shrouded by non-disclosure agreements—a shameful feature of consultation by this government.

To quickly touch on the bill: in the end, we're not opposing this bill in the House. There are some things in here we think are sensible changes—subject to the range and litany of concerns that we've raised that are yet to be appropriately addressed by the government, and they will have an opportunity between now and the Senate committee inquiry report and, ultimately, the Senate looking at this to try to address and alleviate a number of these concerns. We will happily engage with the government on those. But the bill before us today, which has taken two years to get its way here to this dispatch box, amends the NDIS Act in substance in the following ways.

Firstly, it will require the NDIA to provide participants with a clear statement of the basis on which they enter the NDIS. The bill will also clarify and expand the NDIS rules relating to access provision, including the methods or criteria to be applied when making decisions about the disability and early intervention criteria and the matters which must or must not be taken into account. It will create a new 'reasonable and necessary' budget framework for the preparation of NDIS participants' plans, and participants will receive funding based on whether they access the scheme on the basis of impairments that meet the disability requirements, the early intervention requirements or both. It will also provide for the needs assessment process and the method for calculating the total amount of the participant's flexible funding and funding for stated supports for new framework plans to be specified in legislative instruments and NDIS rules. It will insert a new definition of 'NDIS supports', which will provide a clear definition for all participants' authorised supports that will be funded by the NDIS and those that won't. It inserts measures focused on protecting participants, including allowing the CEO to specify the total funding amount for reasonable and necessary supports together with the funding component amount under the plan for each support or class of support up to a specified amount. It clarifies the requirement that a NDIS participant who receives an amount or amounts for NDIS supports may only spend that money in accordance with the participant's plan, and enables the agency to change the plan management type as well as imposes shorter funding periods to safeguard the participants. It also inserts quality and safeguard amendments, enabling the imposition of conditions on approved quality auditors to not employ or engage a person against whom a banning order has been made.

There's much in this bill that's, to some extent, I think, uncontroversial. There are sensible changes. But, again, the acceptance of those is not aided by the shambolic process undertaken by this government—the shambolic way in which the minister and the government have been engaging with their own predominantly state Labor counterparts, quite frankly. That has been a very messy and public display of disagreement that again heightens anxiety, and I think the headline-chasing grabs from the minister have not helped either. When he refers to plan managers, when he refers to many good and decent Australians as 'parasitic pen-pushers'—decent Australians, in most cases, trying to do their best for the people they serve—that sort of coarse language, talking down to your fellow Australians and denigrating them, is not a way to engender support for serious reform. We'll give the government an opportunity between now and the Senate committee inquiry report to demonstrate that they have heard some of these concerns, and we will make our final judgement at that time on whether we support the bill. For the purposes of the House, we will have many speakers on this bill.

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy Affordability) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second that and reserve my right to speak.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 26 September 1960 Fidel Castro spoke to the United Nations General Assembly for 269 minutes. World leaders normally speak to the UN for only 15 minutes. Cuba's leader spoke for 4½ hours. I wasn't there, but I thank the member for Deakin for letting the chamber relive that experience. What a wonderful contribution from him!

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Skills and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It certainly wasn't Gettysburg!

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was not Gettysburg—definitely not, Minister!

In a little over 10 years the National Disability Insurance Scheme has become a crucial Australian institution. It's a scheme we should all be very proud of—a world-leading scheme. I'm personally very proud of my involvement as a backbencher. I particularly thank the godmother of the NDIS, Jenny Macklin; I'm not sure if that makes the member for Maribyrnong the godfather, but I know he has made a significant contribution for a long time to the NDIS.

Minister Shorten said of the NDIS:

It fulfills a sense of collective responsibility … and is integral to our national identity …

I wholeheartedly agree with the Hon. Bill Shorten on that topic. It reflects the core Australian values of looking out for each other and giving a helping hand to those who face more barriers in their daily lives than most Australians. Thanks to the NDIS, support for Australians with disability is now entrenched in both law and by our society, and I think it is becoming a part of our culture. We all love it. What do I mean when I use the word support? When we unpack it and use an NDIS lens, it means people with disability having choice and control over which services they access—a concept that the previous speaker finds abhorrent. It means that the participants can participate in their communities in the ways they choose. It means that children can access early intervention at a time that is crucial for their development. It means that disability supports are given a human value, not just a dollar value. Ultimately it makes Australian a more inclusive place, a kinder place. I would venture to say that it makes us even more Australian.

Contrast this with life pre-NDIS for many people with disability. The services available were patchy across the country and access to them was effectively a game of postcode lottery that almost nobody won, particularly those in the regions. Depending on where you lived, you might have received some funding or access to services or you may have received very little and been very, very disadvantaged. Some received diddly squat. The reality of life for many people with disability at the time was one of isolation, loneliness and a constant struggle to access required supports. The 2009 Shut Out review, commissioned by former prime minister Rudd, shone a light on the daily experiences of those in the disability community. It described the barriers to education, employment, health care, housing, recreation, sport and to full participation in Australian society. And it led to the visionary decision to fundamentally change disability supports in this country for the better.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme was first legislated in July 2013—which I seem to recall was a difficult time—and trial sites were established in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. From these early beginnings, the scheme has grown to supporting nearly 650,000 of our fellow Australians. The 10-year mark was an appropriate time to evaluate and assess the NDIS and the experiences of its participants. It was a Labor election commitment to commission an independent NDIS review and we got this underway in October 2022. The report was released in December last year and it had 26 key recommendations. The Albanese Labor government is now acting on the priority recommendations of this report.

With this bill, we're committed to improving the experience of all Australians with disability and their families and carers regarding their interactions with the NDIS. It's important to note that with this bill, NDIS eligibility remains the same, NDIS plans are still set the same way and NDIS funding is still based on need. The legislation is not about reducing the number of people on the scheme. The overarching goal of these reforms is to return the NDIS to its original intent and to ensure we improve the experience of participants. That's why we're calling this bill 'Getting the NDIS Back on Track'. We're supporting this with $45 million to establish an NDIS evidence advisory committee which will provide better advice about what works for participants.

We need to ensure that the NDIS is supporting the people it was designed to support—in other words, people with disability need to be put back right at the centre of the NDIS. That's why the NDIS review included deep engagement with the disability community over a 12-month period and consultation with around 10,000 Australians who testified to their lived experience. Their feedback taught us that people with disability have lost trust in the NDIS and that interactions with the agencies are often fraught. People with disability have expressed how frustrating it is to continue to have to prove that they are deaf or that they're a quadriplegic or that they have Down syndrome or that they're missing a leg. With these reforms, Labor is taking action to ensure the participant experience of the NDIS is better and that the culture is one of respect and trust and support and dignity. I stress that last word, dignity.

One of the key investments we are making is $20 million to consult and design a new navigation service model for the disability community. The review indicated there are challenges for people with disability, their families and their carers in both navigating the system and accessing critical supports and services. We will collaborate with the disability sector to design a navigational model that is fit for purpose. I got some insights into that last week when I went to an NDIS forum in the electorate of Griffith with Minister Shorten. Listening to the participants, parents, carers and groups in this area is how we will ensure that we have a much better, fit-for-purpose system.

It's also vital that we ensure the long-term sustainability of the NDIS so that future generations can access it and achieve life-changing outcomes. Cost projections show that the annual cost of the NDIS would grow from about $35 billion in 2022-23 to more than $50 billion in 2025-26 and exceed $90 billion a year within a decade. The Albanese Labor government is driving considered sustainable growth for the scheme, and that's why the National Cabinet has agreed to cap its growth rate at eight per cent from 2026.

The reforms in this bill are centred around clarifying access to the NDIS, improving the use of participant budgets, and better early intervention pathways, which are actually the old 'a stitch in time saves nine'. They are also around ensuring quality and safety for participants. Both of those things are crucial, particularly the safety. The reforms are part of the necessary evolution of the scheme. Ultimately, over a period of time, the NDIS will become part of a larger ecosystem of disability supports. In our federation, this will be a unified ecosystem of supports comprising inclusive and accessible foundation supports and mainstream services. It is important to note that these changes are fundamentally aligned with the NDIS Act's existing principles.

I know from speaking to participants in my electorate of Moreton that a real pressure point is plan usage. Participants want to be able to use their funding in the way that best suits them. That's what true agency is. It's not a term to be scared of. This legislation will remove itemised budgets, replacing them with flexible supports and stated supports. This reflects the preference to set the budget at a whole-of-person level rather than for individual support items. There will also be clear guidelines on what the funding can and cannot be used for.

We're directing $5 million to do preliminary work to reform NDIS pricing arrangements. It's vital that NDIS participants get a fair deal, and we think it's also key that price-setting processes and decisions are more transparent. We know that when people hear the word 'NDIS' they add the wedding tax when it comes to providing basic services. We know that. There's a different price for a handrail when there's an NDIS payment rather than a Joe Public or Mary Public payment.

Individual budgets will be developed based on a needs assessment arranged by the National Disability Insurance Agency. This assessment will take a person centred approach and will look at a person's needs holistically. It will result in the participant's reasonable and necessary budget. This approach means that planning decisions are consistent and equitable, not based on the number of reports a participant has or a participant's ability to advocate. We will work with the disability sector to ensure we get the assessment process right.

The reforms will also clarify entry to the scheme. New participants will access the NDIS under the disability requirements, early intervention requirements or both. This will have a flow-on effect to how a participant's support needs are assessed and then their individual budget.

Labor is determined to make the NDIS safer for participants by dealing proactively with fraud, waste and overcharging. Every NDIS dollar should go towards people with disability. I know that Minister Shorten is particularly focused on the fraud. The Fraud Fusion Taskforce that Labor established has already investigated more than 100 cases worth over $1 billion of NDIS funding. Surely we can all agree that it's a true criminal dog act to steal from the disability community.

The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission works alongside the NDIS to ensure providers protect participants from abuse, violence and neglect and operate legally and ethically. This bill will bolster the commission's powers when it comes to taking action on compliance. It will also enable the commission to work with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the NDIA to identify those who are charging more for equipment and services because of that NDIS funding package—as I call it, the wedding tax. As Chair of the Public Works Joint Committee, I sometimes think that there is a defence tax for military construction projects. We know that the vast majority of service and equipment providers work tirelessly, have the best interests of NDIS participants at heart and operate within the NDIS guidelines. It's not fair that their reputation is being undermined by the small minority who, up until now, have got away with unethical behaviour and price gouging. Such practices erode trust in the scheme amongst participants and hardworking Australian taxpayers. If left unchecked, they make the financial foundations of the scheme shaky.

Over the next four years, the $160 million Data and Regulatory Transformation Program will ensure that the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission has the necessary technology and systems to collect and analyse data to better protect participants. This will also reduce the regulatory burden on NDIS service providers and provide enhanced cybersecurity. The Labor government assures participants and the disability sector that these considered and responsible reforms will take time to implement. They cannot take effect until the states and territories agree to the NDIS rules which outline the detailed operation of the scheme. We'll continue to consult with the disability community at every stage, hosting a $130 million co-design and consultation process as we work towards changing the NDIS rules. We intend to put the NDIS above the day-to-day political debate between political parties and between the federal, state and territory governments. People with disability are not political pawns, and getting the NDIS back on track is our priority.

These reforms continue the Albanese Labor government's progress in working with the disability sector. There are more people with lived experience on the NDIS board than ever before, including my friend Kurt Fearnley, the chair of the National Disability Insurance Agency. I had the honour of working with Kurt on the Brisbane 2032 organising committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and he's quite the guiding force. Labor has focused on the 4½ thousand legacy appeal cases that were caught in long delays at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. There is now a partnership between the NDIA and the First Peoples Disability Network to work together on a first national NDIS strategy and action plan. Going forward, as Minister Shorten said, there'll be a significant piece of work to collaborate with people with disability about the reforms, and we're seeking the lived experience of the disability community as we continue to strengthen the scheme together. We also want to work with families, carers, peak bodies, service providers, unions and the broader community. After all, we invested in this great scheme. It's a Labor scheme with Jenny Macklin's, Bill Shorten's and Julia Gillard's fingerprints all over it.

I'm proud to support these reforms, as I know they will make NDIS participants' experiences of the scheme better. They will also make our world-leading NDIS sustainable, meaning that future generations of Australians with disability will be able to access reasonable, necessary and meaningful supports to lead lives of dignity, lives of choice, lives involving connection to community and lives of fulfilment. I commend the bill to the House.

Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The NDIS has transformed the lives of many people with disability around this country. When people with a disability have access to this scheme, they can enjoy independent and dignified lives. The scheme must stay. Our country depends on it. But the disability royal commission, the recent NDIS review and multiple reports of the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS, of which I am a proud member, have been very clear that the NDIS needs significant reform. Firstly we have to ensure choice and control, and access to the reasonable and necessary supports that Australia's NDIS recipients want and deserve. But with 660,000 Australians being NDIS participants and 400,000 working in the NDIS related jobs, and with the scheme projected to cost as much as $100 billion a year by 2030, we have to critically assess the size and cost of the scheme. It is vital that we do not sacrifice flexibility and choice in the process. Cost saving will benefit us all, but it does not need to punish the vulnerable.

In the two months since this bill, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024, was first presented to the House, I've consulted widely with constituents, the health and disability community and legal experts. It's clear that there are many aspects of this legislation and its explanatory memorandum which require revision. In the previous iteration of the NDIS, far too much was left to operational guidelines. This leaves too much to as yet unwritten rules, which will be set out later as delegated legislation. That can be an issue with any bill, but it's particularly problematic with this one given the vulnerabilities and anxieties of the disability community. These concerns are understandable given their previous experience with such things as independent assessments, the frequent attacks on the scheme in the media and the recent pushback by states and territories regarding their involvement in the provision of foundational supports for the NDIA.

This bill, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024, is the government's first response to the landmark review of 2023, which recommended transformative changes to the planning and funding processes of the NDIS. It also suggested that important policy positions in the scheme should be enacted in law rather than in the NDIS operational guidelines. This bill details how participants will enter the scheme and how their support needs will be assessed and funded. It enacts use of a needs assessment to determine a 'reasonable and necessary' budget, built at a whole-of-person level, for participants' packages, rather than a determination line by line for each support item, as was previously done.

The bill gives power to the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme to develop a new legislative instrument, the NDIS rules, which will determine exactly what sorts of supports the NDIS will fund. It gives the minister the power to set decision-making processes about disability requirements and early intervention requirements and the power to prescribe those circumstances in which a participant's eligibility for the NDIS will be assessed and those circumstances in which it may be denied. But the government has not yet released drafts of these rules or determinations, and we don't know what they're going to include. Many of the practical impacts on participants will turn on the contents of those rules and determinations. For example, the EM to this bill assures stakeholders that the disability community will be consulted prior to the legislative instruments being enacted but doesn't say how the consultation will occur. We know there needs to be a process of detailed consultation and co-design that includes all the diverse members of the disability community. Ideally, the bill should require the minister to commit to open disclosure about the process of co-design for each instrument.

We know that many of the new NDIS rules will be category A—they'll have to be agreed between the Commonwealth, the states and the territories—but it's not clear what the NDIS will fund federally and what will be provided by states and territories through so-called foundational supports. We have heard from the states and territories that details of those supports remain unclear and that many state based services have been lost in recent years, so there's real anxiety about the potential for a shortfall in service provision under these new arrangements.

The bill doesn't make clear exactly who is going to undertake the needs assessments. In the past we've seen that planners and local area coordinators are often very inconsistent in their decision-making. Those assessors are going to have to be appropriately trained and qualified professionals with relevant disability expertise, and they will have to be independent of service providers.

The community has expressed concerns that the proposed changes to eligibility and assessment processes could disproportionately impact people with psychosocial disability. It really needs assurance, as well, that all assessments and reassessments required by the NDIA will be fully funded by the scheme. The NDIS review and the parliamentary joint committee's inquiry into the capability and culture of the NDIA recommended that the NDIA assess people according to the totality of their disabilities, but, in its current form, this bill limits the needs assessment to impairments meeting either the disability requirements or the early intervention requirements. We know that at least five prior decisions of the AAT have rejected this position.

The bill also envisages the assessor linking each support need to a specific impairment, but this would, in many cases, result in the artificial exclusion of disability related needs, especially for those people who have coexisting physical and psychosocial impairments. All impairments requiring disability supports should be eligible for NDIS funding. It's particularly important that we don't disadvantage those persons who have high support needs such that they lose the ability to live independently in circumstances of their own determination.

Once the needs assessment has identified support needs, a method will be applied to quantify the reasonable and necessary budget for flexible funding and/or stated supports. The proposed new framework plans will also specify staged release of participants' funding. This could limit flexibility of access to that funding, particularly given that many participants have complex episodic and degenerative disorders. There are also concerns regarding the possibility that the plans could be suspended should the participant exhaust their funds within the stated 12-month period. Such a suspension of care could be contrary to NDIS practice standards. The requirement that certain conditions be met before funds can be accessed or used could potentially include requirements such as providing services from specified providers. This means individuals may not be able to access non-registered providers, which will be a massive problem for some people, especially those in rural and regional centres, where there are thin or no markets, and flexibility of funding is absolutely crucial to accessing support.

The bill does not currently provide for a draft plan to be provided to participants prior to its approval by the NDIS despite multiple previous reviews of the NDIS recommending that this be in place. Having an opportunity to review your draft plan and your budget will improve NDIA decision-making. It will provide an opportunity to correct oversights and errors and it will reduce the number of reviews or appeals of plans after they've taken effect. It's not negotiable that that should be in the legislation.

While we have no information as to the proposed content of the delegated legislation, the EM does say that things like holidays, household appliances and whitegoods won't qualify as NDIS supports. That might seem reasonable on first glance, but the EM should not pre-emptively rule out categories of support. The pitfalls of such an approach have been demonstrated on numerous occasions at the AAT. For example, conditions which render individuals susceptible to heat stress which could result in medical complications requiring additional health treatment should be managed by the NDIS with provision of appropriate air conditioners. That's one example, but there are many. While the NDIS should not fund holidays, NDIS recipients have a right to have holidays, like all Australians, and they may require support when they have them. Respite care should also remain funded. Equally, the rules should not prevent participants from making innovative and efficient use of their flexible funding—for example, by pooling funds for group purchases of items like adapted vehicles.

The bill establishes new powers for the CEO to request information from participants and other people. Those powers provide insufficient protections for participants. Failure to comply with requests in 90 days could give the CEO discretion to revoke participants' status. Participants failing to provide information regarding the formulation of their framework plan within 28 days could experience automatic consequences. We all know how long you can wait to see a doctor in this country. You can't punish people who can't come up with a medical opinion within 90 days unless the NDIS is prepared to accept responsibility for arranging those opinions. The magnitude of revocation of plans is potentially massive. Particularly for those people over 65 it could be disastrous. This part of the bill has to change.

The proposed powers permit the CEO to request any information which is 'reasonably necessary'. This is not well defined. Production of such information could be burdensome, it could be expensive and it could be distressing for participants. There are also significant concerns within the disability community regarding the prospect of mandatory medical assessments, particularly if these are to be undertaken by a person other than the person's treating medical professional. Under some subsections of the bill, failure to comply with requests will automatically result in significant consequences. The consequences for such noncompliance have to be made discretionary to the CEO.

The bill does not clearly explain if or how a participant can seek review if they do not agree with their needs assessment report. It does say that you can seek review of the statement of participant supports, which includes the budget, but it's not clear whether or not that review would allow challenge of the needs assessment or just the budget. If it's the latter, a budget based on an inappropriate needs assessment could not be suitably corrected on review. The bill provides for a replacement assessment, but it doesn't stipulate when one would be available or whether or not the participant would be able to request one. At a minimum, this bill should provide that a participant has the right to access a replacement assessment in relation to each NDIS plan developed for them, and the CEO should also have the discretion to arrange further assessments as appropriate. That decision by the CEO should be subjected to internal and external review.

While the proposed 'reasonable and necessary' budget is designed to allow greater flexibility in how participants spend their funding, the bill also introduces new powers enabling the NDIA to constrain or supervise participant spending. There's a real risk that the proposed changes to plan variation, reassessment and review processes will diminish participants' rights and autonomy.

There may be many reasons for why a participant hasn't been able to utilise the whole of their NDIS budget. The NDIS review suggested that there should be a more trust based approach to how participants use their budgets and that they should not be penalised for genuine mistakes or errors. The NDIA must prioritise building the capacity of participants to understand and to utilise the plans where necessary and to provide appropriate supports to facilitate this process. We need to work with NDIS participants, and not try to punish them. Restrictions on plan management should take effect only when a participant has demonstrated repeated and intentional failure to comply with necessary requirements.

The initial NDIS rollout was criticised for its emphasis on meeting short-term targets and unrealistic deadlines. This meant the plan implementation was not always aligned with the original intentions for the scheme. An independent review of the NDIS in 2013 described it as being 'like a plane that took off before it had been fully built and is being completed while it's in the air'. It's vital that we not make the same mistake again.

The Senate inquiry into this bill opened on 21 May 2024 and it won't report before 20 June. The many submissions to that inquiry have laid out very many cogent and detailed suggestions for improvement of the bill. All of those require and deserve due consideration. I continue to work with constituents, expert groups and the government on some of these amendments.

In considering this bill, I returned again and again to the desires, the dreams and the disappoints expressed by disabled members of our community when they talk about the NDIS. I thought of them and I thought of their parents, their siblings and their friends, of what we owe them and how important this legislation is. We've waited years for these vital reforms. It's absolutely necessary that we get them right, and I commit to continuing to work with the government in that respect.

Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As most Australians know, a grassroots campaign was at the heart of the creation of the NDIS. People with disability, community organisations, advocates and governments worked hard to make disability reform a reality. They had lived too long in the shadows, segregated from participating in the fullness of our communities' offerings.

The NDIS was legislated in 2013 by the Gillard Labor government with bipartisan support. It moved through trial and transition to full scheme rollout across Australia by 2020. Now, 10 years on, the NDIS supports nearly 650,000 adults and children and employs 325,000 Australians. Many participants are receiving supports for the first time.

As of 31 March this year, there were 2,265 NDIS participants in Higgins—keenly interested, all of them, in the scheme's continuation, efficiency and sustainability. Locally, I have responded by establishing the Higgins NDIS network which holds events for my community. I was fortunate to have Professor Bruce Bonyhady, the architect of the NDIS, present at the first webinar.

To my constituents who are NDIS participants it is inconceivable that we would ever return to the days before the NDIS, when support for those of us living with disability was patchy, leaving people feeling like second class citizens—hidden and forgotten. You have told me this. From Christie, 'The NDIS is the most important issue for me and my family.' Kate said, 'I really appreciated Professor Bonyhady sharing his knowledge, expertise, experience and wisdom with us. I an much reassured by his involvement in the reform. I also greatly appreciate his compassion. I do genuinely support the reform to restore equity and integrity.' But, as he also said, it must be done with people with disabilities and their families enabled to be highly involved in the process. The co-design is incredibly important and something we have committed to. Sarah said, 'Thank you for your ongoing dedication to ensuring the NDIS can meet the needs of participants now and into the future. I know how greatly you value the NDIS, but I also know that you have frustrations with processing delays and the sheer bureaucracy of it.' One constituents said, 'Suffering from debilitating depression, Hannah was accepted as an NDIS participant after an application period of seven months, but has still not had a planning meeting.' Another said: 'After a review in 2021, Dean is on a plan with funding in different buckets. He has had no luck in having the plan changed with his provider, and is consequently not using the services as entitled to. He is increasingly isolated and ill.' Kate is grateful for the NDIS, but summed it up as 'a very challenging system to interact with, and as the review showed, it is inherently traumatising'. Traumatising—that's not part of its mission.

The NDIS is now as important to you and to all of us as Medicare, but your stories indicate that you have issues with how the scheme is being administered. There is also community concern at the mounting costs—projected to be $100 billion by 2030—reports of fraud, overservicing, the cost of add-ons known as 'the wedding tax', as well as, obviously, the scheme sustainability.

The NDIS has become the only lifeboat in the ocean. I worry that participants, particularly children, are potentially spending excessive time at therapists rather than enjoying the full benefits of school with its attendant opportunities for education, socialisation and sport—therapy in the community.

For these reasons, initiating a root-and-branch review of the NDIS was an election promise for this Labor government. The aims of the review were to restore trust and confidence in the NDIS and put you—the NDIS participants, families and carers—at the centre. The review looked at the NDIS design, how it works and how we can make sure it can continue. It considered how the NDIS can work better for people with permanent and significant disability—those whom the NDIS was designed to support. The review started in October 2022 and the report was released on 7 December last year, containing 26 recommendations and 139 actions. I won't go through all these recommendations; suffice to say that it's going to take time to enact these reforms and these changes, and we anticipate it will take approximately five years for that to occur. It recommended that change be carefully implemented over this five year timeframe. The review involved deep engagement with you—NDIS participants—and your communities.

Some sitting opposite have derided the government's decision to spend time on a compressive review. I challenge them to listen to Bruce Bonyhady and read the actual report. They will be inspired by the depth, good sense and optimism of the review. Ten thousand of you spoke to the review, and individuals and organisations provided 4,000 submissions. You also supplied more than 2,000 hours of deeply personal stories of your experiences.

The review team worked with a small group of people to test changes to the current planning and budget-setting processes. The review's panel view is that we can't fix the NDIS without fixing everything around it—the ecosystem, in other words. Recommendations go beyond the NDIS to create a new, connected system of support, including accessible and inclusive mainstream services and a new system of foundational supports as well as reforming the NDIS. Importantly, the review recommends that you—NDIS participants—be at the heart, the centre, of all reform, and that the disability community be consulted on the changes and the timelines for those changes. This is partly why I established the Higgins NDIS Network—to keep our community abreast of these reforms, ensuring that they have access to information rather than misinformation.

The legislation creates the scaffolding needed to start the journey of making the NDIS stronger and better for all people. Firstly, the changes will enable better early intervention pathways for people living with psychosocial disability and children under the age of nine. New participants will enter the NDIS under disability requirements, the new early intervention requirements, or both. Secondly, the legislation will improve how participant budgets are set and provide clearer information on how they can be spent. Budgets would be set at a whole-of-person level rather than as individual line items. More flexibility and participant autonomy will be built in. Thirdly, the changes will bolster the powers of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission to protect participants from illegal and unethical conduct, which we know is rife. We are out to catch the crooks and we will get them. Some changes can happen quickly, but others will take time.

The Albanese government is committed to working collaboratively with states and territories and the disability community to progress the required reforms. This is patient but important work. The states are key to providing foundational supports to ensure that the NDIS remains viable and is not regarded as the only option when support is required. This means taking a collaborative rather than a divisive and combative approach with the states. We need to work with them as partners. It was a Labor government that created the NDIS, and it will be a Labor government that gets it back on track. I commend this bill to the House.

Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've seen firsthand the life-changing effects that an NDIS package can have on constituents, particularly in my seat on the Mid North Coast—people like Connor Bryant from Sawtell, who I met up with recently, who had an issue with his NDIS package that was ultimately resolved. Connor had a workplace accident and is now wheelchair bound. The NDIS has completely changed his life. We know that individuals who have been provided with the right package delivered by the right service provider at the right time have had their quality of life improved immeasurably. It is a good program. It's a worthy and essential program that has to continue, but it needs to be continually assessed, adapted and made functional in order for it to exist in generations to come. The coalition has always recognised this, and it has been disappointing to see the NDIS used for political pointscoring in recent years and months. If ever there were a program that needed bipartisanship, this is it.

Ironically, each accusation previously levelled at the coalition government has now essentially been agreed and confirmed by those opposite. Prior to the 2022 election, our government was accused of hyperbole, of whispering in the corridors that the scheme—as it currently stands—was unsustainable, of unnecessarily requesting reviews that were only delaying tactics and even of making cuts in the budget. The reality was, of course, that the coalition had invested a record $157.8 billion over four years to support over 550,000 Australians living with a disability. Now, Labor has come into government and assessed the current scheme parameters and its cost trajectory, which, I might add, at its current rate will be $125 billion by 2035 and will eclipse Medicare by almost four times. The Minister for the NDIS has agreed that the scheme is growing in its cost base too quickly and that significant reviews are in fact required.

While it's frustrating to hear those murmurings of agreement to issues years after they were raised by the coalition, it is comforting that we now appear to be singing from the same hymn sheet and moving forward with addressing the plethora of issues plaguing this very worthy initiative as it currently stands. When I say a plethora, that is no exaggeration. The flaws in the system at times feel almost immeasurable. It is time to knuckle down and start plugging those leaks together in a bipartisan way and also to acknowledge the unintended knock-on effects that the scheme has created.

In my electorate of Cowper, the NDIS has outranked every other issue at least two to one when it comes to the volume of commentary from my constituents. I hold mobile offices at least four times a month around my electorate in order to ensure that every township of Cowper gets the opportunity to come and chat with me in person without having to drive to my permanent offices in Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie. Without fail, at every mobile office I hold, conversations around the NDIS will consume at least half of the available time.

Now, that's fairly extraordinary when you think about it. You can consider the raft of local and national issues on the table for discussion, from the cost of living to health care, local roads, telecommunications and everything in between, yet the NDIS takes up half the time. For a start, there are those coming to me who are currently covered by a package and are either asking for assistance to be reassessed or notifying me of the rampant overcharging they have experienced within their package—and I'll get back to overcharging in a moment. Currently, we are seeing that waiting times for reviews are regularly reported as taking six months or more. That is far too long. These are individuals and families that are desperately trying to access critical services during a cost-of-living crisis that have been unable to afford the care they desperately need for over half a year. We have to do better.

I come back to the overcharging. There are reports of the charge for the installation of handrails and ramps costing three times more when claimed through the NDIS than when they're quoted privately. There are reports of charges of hundreds of dollars to take out a participant's bins once a week. I think that's a reflection on society. When I grew up, we took out our neighbour's bins. There is an example of a builder providing a $750 quote for a chairlift. It is just outrageous. It is rorting and it is fraud.

Then there are those who come to me to report the fraudulent claims of active participants on the system. These are stories that I continue to listen to. I'm privileged enough to have been put on the NDIS review committee. I have travelled to remote locations with the member for Corangamite, who's doing a very good job, and Senator Urquhart. We went to the Northern Territory and to remote locations in Western Australia. These are the most vulnerable people—Indigenous people in remote and very remote locations where it's extremely difficult to get service providers. They're generally fly-in, fly-out service providers, and some of them are very good; some of them provide the services. But there was a waterfall of stories about service providers getting in contact with vulnerable people, offering them cash or fishing gear or laptops to change their service provider over to them and never being heard of again yet charging tens of thousands—indeed, hundreds of thousands of dollars—from individuals' packages.

This is exactly why we have to have a review into the NDIS. This is the ripping off of not the Australian government but the Australian taxpayer. These people are crooks and they should be locked up.

Over the past 18 months I've held forums throughout the electorate covering a large spectrum of issues, from child care to health care, aged care and veterans' affairs, and in each of these forums one of the biggest issues has been the drain out of those industries' workforces and into the NDIS because they can charge more. This is exactly why we need to look at capping those services. Those services should not allow people to walk a participant around a shopping centre on a Sunday for $128 an hour. I have seen invoices where the service provider only provides services on a Saturday or a Sunday because they get double the rate, effectively. You can't blame a nurse or somebody working in aged care in a tough environment where you're physically and mentally challenged every single day and getting paid $35 an hour when you can go out and earn $60 an hour during the week to take somebody for a coffee in a shopping centre. This is not why we designed the system. I know that those on the other side of the floor have heard the same stories. The last speaker spoke of them. It's frustrating. It is really frustrating.

Whilst I support this bill, I feel the need to outline some of the concerns we hold as the coalition with the bill in its current form and reserve my final position until the bill goes through the Senate inquiry. I know I've said this before, but there is a lack of clarity and detail in the bills put to this House by Labor, and this bill continues to concern me. For example, I don't believe the bill has made it clear what a participant can do if they don't agree with the outcome of the needs assessment. I know from the feedback of many in my electorate that NDIA decisions are often inconsistent and ultimately debatable, but this bill currently doesn't outline any avenue for review.

On that avenue of thought, I need to question the consultation process on some of these changes. I have received impassioned pleas from representative organisations claiming that they have had no avenue to comment and have not been consulted. Due to the non-disclosure agreements in place, I haven't been able to effectively assess these claims either. I question why this bill was not open to public consultation. It's certainly not in the spirit of the transparency, fairness, compassion and accountability that the bill professes to maintain.

The bill also states that the applied principles and tables of support will be incorporated as an interim measure to determine what is and what is not an NDIS support, yet it has been widely recognised that APTOS has failed in the past. There are also no provisions around providers of last resort. There's still a lot of work to do to develop a method for more consistent assessing and determining funding levels for housing and living supports, and I certainly don't feel that this bill effectively addresses that.

I also feel it necessary to note that there has been no formal government response to the disability royal commission or the NDIS Review. The release of the bill at this point in time is surprising. It appears that its rushed delivery is to be in time for the release of the 2024-25 federal budget.

In conclusion, I started by saying that we can all agree that there is much to be done, and the time for action was yesterday. We have to stop the waste and the fraud on the system and ensure that there is adequate funding and human resources to swiftly and appropriately support those in genuine need. The success of the proposed reforms will depend on creating a viable sector with quality providers—emphasis on 'quality providers'—and registered providers, and without properly assessing and implementing all elements required to achieve that, including addressing workforce shortages. The NDIS is an essential initiative that can and should continue to assist hundreds of thousands of Australians living with a disability to improve and maintain their quality of life now and for generations to come. I look forward to continuing to work with all sides of the floor towards that resolution.

Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In reflecting on this bill, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024, I think it is worth looking back on where we have come from. The NDIS is in fact the largest social reform since the introduction of Medicare. It has fundamentally shifted the way we support people with disability right across Australia. The NDIS has been transformational and indeed life-changing for more than 640,000 people with disability, including for the very many across our country who have, under the scheme, accessed support for the very first time. As I said, it has been life-changing for people with disability, and also for their families and for their carers—and that includes for people in my community.

It is our responsibility, the responsibility of all of us in this place, to ensure the NDIS supports the best social and economic outcomes possible for people with disability now and, importantly, for future generations to come. Those of us here now are the custodians of what is this life-changing scheme. It is our responsibility to ensure the NDIS is effective, is sustainable and provides appropriate support to those who need it most both now and into the future—and that is, of course, what this bill is all about. It delivers on our government's commitment to participants, and their families and carers, to restore trust in the NDIS and to ensure its continued success now and for many years to come.

At the last election our government said to people with disability and the disability community that we wanted to work alongside them to deliver essential reforms to make sure the NDIS was on track, to make the NDIS a priority and not penalise people with disability for wanting to live whole and fulfilling lives. We made a commitment to having more people with disability on the NDIS board—and, of course, we have appointed Australian Paralympic legend and disability advocate Kurt Fearnley AO as chairman.

We made a commitment to conducting a thorough and independent review of the scheme from top to bottom, and that was completed at the end of last year. We have said that we will make sure money is going where it should, to supporting NDIS participants. Importantly, we've said we're committing to making the NDIS sustainable so that future generations have access to this life-changing scheme in the way participants today do.

This bill is for people with disability and for the disability community. It reflects their ideas, their voices and their experiences. It is for the more than 4,000 NDIS participants who live in my electorate in Jagajaga. It's for the more than 640,000 participants right around Australia. It's for future generations who will rely on the NDIS to achieve their potential and to lead the life they choose. Importantly, it's for families, carers and supporters as well.

Whenever I talk about the NDIS, I think about the introduction and rollout of the scheme in 2013 under the Gillard and Rudd governments. I have spoken in this place before about the privilege of working directly with the then minister responsible for the NDIS—my predecessor as the member for Jagajaga, Jenny Macklin. In her valedictory speech Jenny rightly described the NDIS as the biggest social reform of our generation. She is enormously proud of it, as I know all of us on the Labor side are—Minister Shorten, former prime minister Gillard, the people who ushered the scheme into parliament and into our nation. The need was and remains great for this scheme. Again, I reflect on the needs we saw at the time—parents caring for children with disability with no end in sight worried about what would happen next as they aged, worried about who would take on that responsibility; people with disability waiting endlessly for support, and for supports that were not tailored to their need, on a waiting list for a package that didn't meet their unique needs and that often took far too long to come. Right across the country, there were stories of needs not being met, of people not being understood, of families leading really quite desperate lives. The NDIS has changed a lot of that. There is still more work to do, and that is what this bill does.

Rightly, at that point people with disability, their carers and the people who work with them came together to demand better of the Australian government and of governments right across the country. As then prime minister Julia Gillard said when introducing the NDIS in 2013:

The Scheme is ambitious, and necessarily so.

Because more than 400,000 people are living with significant and permanent disabilities.

Because carers are required to stretch the bonds of obligation and kinship past breaking point.

Because the nation is being robbed of the human and economic potential of people living with disability and the contribution they can make to our shared future.

Because while the promise of fairness and equality that lies at the core of our national ethos is denied to some Australians, we are all diminished.

Those words applied then, and they apply now, and they apply to the work that comes next under this bill. This bill is important to getting the NDIS on track, restoring the intent of the scheme and delivering better outcomes for people with disability now and into the future.

Like many who have already spoken on this bill and, I'm sure, many who will speak after me, as a local member—the member for Jagajaga—I hear from hundreds of participants in my local community, families, carers, workers and advocates, who all share their experiences of the NDIS with me. I am very grateful to all of those people in my community who share their personal stories and their honest feedback. I recognise that often that takes courage and care, and it is vital in shaping how we improve the NDIS. As I mentioned earlier, there are more than 4,000 NDIS participants in my community. Forty per cent of those people are aged between zero and 14. I'm aware that some of those participants can't advocate for themselves, so a parent, relative or friend often steps in to raise their voice on that person's behalf. And I'm very aware that the reforms we're pursuing with this bill must ensure that all of those people continue to have confidence and trust in the NDIS.

Overwhelmingly, the people who contact me about the NDIS are appreciative and grateful for the support they receive. It does make a huge difference in people's day-to-day lives and in their ability to meet their hopes for the future. But we must also acknowledge that there are areas where the NDIS can do far better. People do struggle sometimes with their interactions with the agency. They struggle with confusion about what should and shouldn't be included in plans and they struggle with understanding what their future looks like under the scheme. So we cannot afford to be complacent. We need to use what we've learned and what we've heard to make the scheme better, to realise the promise and to make sure that the scheme endures. As the minister has said many times, the NDIS cannot be the only lifeboat in the ocean, and I echo some of the concerns from the member for Higgins in her speech earlier, around children, in particular, accessing support in appropriate ways and locations. The NDIS shouldn't push people into endless therapy if that's not the best support and if support can be provided in other locations where children actually are.

Over the past two years, our government has been working with people with disability, their families and carers and the disability community more broadly to identify how we can strengthen and improve the NDIS. It's important to recognise that this bill is based on that work, on the recommendations of the independent NDIS review which was released at the end of last year. The bill restores the original intent of the NDIS and prioritises access, plans and budget setting, and quality and safety. It strengthens the powers of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission to protect NDIS participants from illegal and unethical conduct. The timing of this bill reflects the agreement our government made with states and territories last year, and it is important to note that this requires national reform. It will require all governments to be involved. The overriding principle behind these reforms is to put people back at the heart of the NDIS and ensure that every dollar in the scheme reaches the participants who need it.

The bill will be supporting the creation of a distinct early intervention pathway for participants who can have their needs best met by an early intervention approach, such as children under the age of nine or those with psychosocial disability or progressive conditions. It will be improving participant budgets, making them flexible and providing more straightforward information on how the participant or their family can spend them. It will be improving the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission's ability to administer compliance and enforcement powers.

As I said, the bill is very much informed by the work done by the expert panel last year. That review panel was led by co-chairs Professor Bruce Bonyhady AM and Ms Lisa Paul AO, PSM. They examined the NDIS's design, operations and sustainability, making 26 recommendations and releasing a very comprehensive report that reflected the serious care and time they took to talk to participants, people with disability, their families and carers and the broader disability sector. I think it is important to note the level of input that went into that report. The panel did travel to every state and territory, including regional and remote communities. They heard directly from 10,000 Australians. They worked with disability organisations to reach out and listen to a thousand people with disabilities and their families. They recorded more than 2,000 personal stories and received almost 4,000 submissions.

In concluding their review, the panel said that they urged all governments to commit to creating a unified ecosystem of support for people with disability. This should comprise inclusive and accessible mainstream services, a thriving foundational support system for all people with disability and a reformed participant pathway within the NDIS for those needing individualised budgets. The panel also noted that it's in the interest of all Australians to secure the future sustainability of the NDIS. Our recommendations, if implemented as a package, will secure the future sustainability of the NDIS, as well as deliver better support for people with disabilities and a better experience for those in the NDIS. I very much endorse those sentiments and again note the level of work and consultation with people with disability that went into making them. I want to assure the NDIS participants and their families in my community that these changes are considered; they're ones that the government is undertaking in a measured way. We will continue to put people with disability at the heart of our reforms. We will continue to walk alongside the disability community in making sure that we make the NDIS the best possible scheme it can be—now and into the future. NDIS eligibility hasn't changed; plans are still set similarly and funding is, and will, remain based on need. This legislation is about ensuring the future of the NDIS, of a scheme that we, as a nation, should all be proud of. It is not about removing people from the scheme.

I know of course that in these times of change there can be a lot of fear and, in some cases, misinformation out there, so I really want to give those reassurances to people in my community and right around the country about both the intent and the actions that this government will be taking. All of us on this side of the House are so proud of the NDIS; we are proud of the lives that it has changed and we are committed to seeing it realise its full potential. In fact, five years ago, as I made my first speech in this House, I said that we hadn't yet realised the potential of the NDIS. Making it work must involve an unswerving commitment on our part to listen to, and act upon, the stories and experiences of those who rely on it. I am really confident that that's the approach the government has taken in drafting this bill. I'm confident it's the approach the government will continue to take as it works to reform the NDIS, to make sure that it realises both that early promise and intent as well as its sustainability into the future—providing Australians with disability, their families, their carers and people who work with them the best possible options for their lives right now and into the future. I commend the bill to the House.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If only the name of this bill—the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024—was exactly what was going to happen, because, if there is any piece of legislation coming before this House, and if there's any aspect of society that needs to get back on track, it's the NDIS.

In my first of, so far, five terms in this place, the Gillard government brought the NDIS to fruition. The difficulty was that there was no money attached to it and, when the coalition took over government in 2013, we had a lot of work to do. I supported the NDIS from the outset. I remember the former New South Wales Legislative Council member John Della Bosca, and one of his portfolios between 2008 and 2009 in the New South Wales Parliament was as Minister for Health and Medical Research. He ran the 'Every Australian Counts' campaign. I remember it, and the red T-shirts. He went around with a written quote bubble showing the words, 'Every Australian Counts' on it. I was happy to get a picture in one of those shirts with one of those placards. I can remember getting criticised at the time, because we hadn't agreed to every aspect of it—it was something new, put forward by Labor—but I thought I needed to do a couple of things about it. The first was to ring Kurrajong in Wagga Wagga in my electorate, which has been providing disability services for six decades. I rang Kurrajong and spoke to Cathie Smith to see what she thought of this approach, and Kurrajong was supportive. I thought, 'If Kurrajong is supportive, then I should be too,' As I said, it was something that was new. It was something that the Labor government was proposing and it does remain, I believe, a legacy of Julia Gillard, our first female prime minister. I have respect for former prime minister Gillard for a number of things, not least of which is this, but it is now mired in mess.

There are more calls to my office in relation to the NDIS than for any other thing. In fact, you could add up every other call to my office, and they still wouldn't match the number of calls to my office that come in in relation to the NDIS. They are heartbreaking calls. They are fraught-with-despair calls. I asked my electorate officer who deals with most, if not all, of these matters, to give me some cases. While I won't and wouldn't publish the names, they are very pertinent to this debate. First is a vulnerable man who lodged his change of circumstance in November 2023. As at 11 April 2024, his claim had still not been finalised even though he was going to run out of money then. If he doesn't have support, there is a danger he will die. Another case is a woman with multiple sclerosis whose change of circumstance was lodged in February 2024. Her plan had run out of money and her support coordinator was paying for the supports. When the plan came through in late March, the plan was worth less than this woman's plan was two years ago. A reviewable decision has now been lodged.

Another situation is a young 18-year-old man whose mother had to take him to the NDIS office within the Wagga Centrelink to prove he was nonverbal, even though he had been nonverbal for his whole life. There's a father who put his son's review of plan in November 2023 and was continually told it was being escalated but that nothing would happen until the plan had a thousand dollars left in it. In early May 2024, the plan was about to run out of money and dad has had a promotion at his work. But he will have to tell his boss he can't start, because he'll have to stay at home to care for his son. Yet another case is a man with MND, motor neurone disease. He lodged a plan, a review for assistive technologies, in November and December 2023. It wasn't finalised until the end of April 2024.

And this is the kicker: this is the departmental wording at the end of a lot of emails in relation to the NDIS that recipients receive through my office: 'Please accept our apologies for the delay in resolving this matter for your office,' there's a line redacted there, 'and for any stress this may have caused. If the participant requires crisis support, the participant or their support should contact their local GP, hospital or mental health crisis team. Alternatively, they can contact Lifeline on 131114.'

My electorate officer has worked with me for more than 20 years in various capacities, and she is one of the most diligent people I have ever met. She's a patient person, a caring person and an empathetic person. She said to the NDIS, 'If you dealt with these matters in a timely manner, our constituents would not be getting stressed out,' and she feels it. But it's more than her feeling it, because she can go home at the end of the day and concentrate on her family and do other things. The pain and suffering that those families are enduring are ongoing. They don't finish at five o'clock, turn the computer off and stop answering the phone. Their enormous grief and stress is 24/7. It's hard.

I hear reports—and I note that other people who are speaking on this bill have also mentioned it—that the NDIS is taking up—in fact, like a big sponge—many of the workers who would otherwise be doing other work, perhaps in aged care, perhaps in child care. Goodness knows, we need more and more people in those two sectors! But why would you want to do the heavy lifting of a person who can't get out of bed and strain your back, when you could be getting paid three times as much—a lot of money per hour—as an NDIS carer, to take somebody to the pictures or tenpin bowling or to the gym? These are some of many circumstances that have been relayed to my office. This is such a shame because the NDIS is taking a lot of people out of other sectors, being a big drain.

There are circumstances in which people are being paid NDIS who are, let me tell you, anecdotally, questionable. There are other people who just simply can't get the support. There are people who have Down syndrome and yet have to prove every year that they have this condition. It is just so difficult, so I say: if this legislation were to get the NDIS back on track, all well and good, but I doubt it very much.

I received some very telling texts from a fellow by the name of Mark Pietsch this morning. Mark once lived in the Central Western New South Wales town of Forbes. He's now the New South Wales state director of Physical Disability Australia. He wrote several texts to me this morning that are very concerning. He said, 'I know people in the Central West already struggle to access reliable disability services, and this bill, as it sits, will leave families worse off, and passes the buck to non-existent services.'

There's a bit of a rub there—'non-existent services'. I know when the NDIS was first starting out there were shysters, I would call them, out there trying to get part of the action with the NDIS. People who were not like Kurrajong in my electorate in Wagga Wagga and beyond, who were not people with years of experience, years of care, years of concern, years of compassion and years of professional experience. They were just coming into the NDIS thinking they could make a fast buck out of people and families who, quite frankly, were being dudded out of what they should have been receiving under this new system.

Mr Pietsch continued, 'Bill Shorten knows that these changes'—these are his words not mine—'will make the NDIS more like aged care and will force families to relinquish care of their disabled brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, and force them into homes living with two others with a disability. Like me, no-one plans on or wishes to end up with a disability. They are living in a country where we still have the chance to live a meaningful life, have a family, work and have the same opportunities as others, which is something Aussies have come to be proud of. Studies undertaken by the NDIA, as a participant of the review, show that the public have a sense of ownership and want to protect the disability community.' He's right, because I know all Australians and all parliamentarians would want the best for those people who are, unfortunately, through no fault of their own, having to call on NDIS services.

Mark continued, 'The problems we see with the NDIS today are tied to poor administration, inflated and inefficient systems and red tape that would call for an OT to write a $400 report for a $20 item, and fraud that is allowed to occur because the NDIA commission use surprising strategies that disregard quality services and encourage cowboys.' I called them shysters before, but there are, unfortunately, cowboys in this sector and in this system. Mark continued, 'More red tape is not the answer, especially for rural communities. We need common sense and bureaucrats who actually speak and engage with the system they wish to change.'

He said, 'Later today we're expecting statements from a number of peak bodies highlighting concerns on the contents of the legislation.' That sentence from Mr Pietsch worries me, because I know that Labor, when they came to office in May 2022—and more's the pity they did—said that they would—

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Shame!

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, shame! I could take that interjection, but we move on. I know he was being facetious. It was a shame, because we heard that we were going to see more transparency and more probity, but quite the opposite is the case. Labor should have consulted more widely and broadly for this particular legislation. They will claim they have. I doubt that.

The text from Mr Pietsch continues that the most problematic is section 10, which is likely to be shot down by the human rights committee as it cherrypicks only some of the sections of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disability.

Mr Pietsch is right. He's got skin in the game. He knows that the NDIS as it stands is riddled with problems. It is draining people who would otherwise be engaged in other activities from those activities into this. It is a whirlpool of money that really needs to be addressed. I can remember the then New South Wales Premier, Morris Iemma, a Labor Premier, talking in the nineties about the fact that the health budget, if it were left to run as it was, was going to take up almost all of the state budget. He, as a former minister and then a premier, strove to do something about it. I pay tribute to him for doing just that. He was, in essence, a good premier.

This is the same. We face a grave dilemma here with the NDIS: that it will, as a money whirlpool, suck so much out of the budget—and I appreciate that much of it is uncapped. We need to do a thorough investigation about where the money is being spent, why people who have lifelong conditions have to consistently and continually prove that they have those conditions and why there are such delays, I appreciate that in the budget we're getting 36,000 more public servants. No doubt most of them will be occupied on shiny seats here in Canberra. If we're going to have that many thousands more public servants, they need to be doing gainful activities, and that is perhaps on the NDIS switchboard and making sure we address some of these cases, making sure we go through them so that people such as those in the case examples that I read from my electorate office aren't happening more and more.

We have to listen to people like Mark Pietsch, who knows what he's talking about. It's one of the main reasons he had to move from Forbes to Wollongong. It's forcing people with disabilities out of local communities into the cities to access services. This is not fair. This is not equity. This is not right in the Australia that we live in in 2024. The government has to, must and should do better.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No.1) Bill 2024. The NDIS is another great Labor reform that has become embedded in the Australian consciousness, like Medicare. The Albanese government was elected on a promise to put people back at the centre of the scheme and get the NDIS back on track. We're determined to deliver on that and make sure it stays true to its purpose. The changes in the NDIS referred to in this bill will deliver for those who need it most and will contribute towards the NDIS once again being delivered in accordance with its original intent. In introducing this legislation, the government is keeping its promise to legislate in the first half of 2024 as agreed at the National Cabinet in December 2023. The bill will usher in a new era of NDIS reforms that ensure the scheme can continue to provide life-changing benefits and outcomes for future generations of Australians living with disability and will make sure every dollar given by the taxpayer to the scheme goes to the participants for whom the scheme was originally intended and designed. It will bolster the powers of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission to protect participants from illegal and unethical conduct. There wouldn't be a member in this House that wouldn't have had complaints in relation to those issues in their constituency office and taken them to the minister's office.

This legislation follows the joint commissioned independent review of the NDIS, its final report and extensive consultation with states and territories at the Disability Reform Ministerial Council. The bill addresses priority recommendations from the review and represents the first tranche of amendments to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 to improve participant experience. The priority reforms for the government in this bill are focused on access, plans and budgetary settings, and quality and safety.

There are around 7,000 NDIS participants in my electorate, and we have a healthy ecosystem of NDIS disability service providers in Ipswich and the surrounds. One of them is ALARA, which was formed in June 1991 to address the need for urgent respite care for people with disabilities and their families. It was actually renamed ALARA in 2000; initially it was not called that at all. It provides daily living, aged-care and disability support services, lifestyle support, accommodation support, respite and other activities as well as group and centre based activities, not just in my electorate in Ipswich and Somerset but also in your electorate, Deputy Speaker Buchholz, in the Lockyer Valley, which used to be in my electorate. There are 250 dedicated staff and volunteers on top of that who provide great support.

We have providers like Focal Community Services, which has about 200 staff and 600 clients and a proud history of caring for people living with disabilities in the Ipswich community. It started off as the Friends of Challinor Aid League. Tragically and shamefully, in those olden days, we called places like the Challinor Centre, where the USQ Ipswich campus is now, lunatic asylums. That was simply a disgrace in our history. People were put back in community with their families and of course provided with support, but not enough, and that's why the NDIS came into being. It was great to catch up with Focal CEO, Tanya Miller, and Chairperson, Zane Ali, last month to celebrate the organisation's 50th birthday—an amazing milestone. They've seen a lot of changes in the NDIS. You talk to Tanya, and she'll tell you that the NDIS has been the biggest change in disability services during Focal's and ALARA's many years of service to Ipswich and the surrounds.

It's generally accepted that, before the NDIS, disability services in my home state of Queensland were not up to the same standard as in most other states. In fact, I remember having discussions on numerous occasions with the then Queensland Treasurer and member for Ipswich David Hamill about the need for improved services. Before him, of course, the former Liberal member for Ipswich Sir Llew Edwards took it as a great passion to work in areas of disability. They were two great Ipswich residents who worked very hard for the people of Ipswich and to care for people with disability in my local community and provide extra funding in their various capacities as treasurers.

The introduction of the NDIS has been an absolute game changer, a step change for people with disability in my home state. It's truly a life-changing economic and social policy and a major structural reform. The reality is that the Labor government has taken it upon itself to make these changes. We saw headlines of the previous coalition government, term after term, whinging and whining and wailing about the growth in the NDIS but doing almost nothing about it. Like the Minister for the NDIS, I firmly believe the scheme is the best change politics could do in the 21st century. It's really important to change, and we're in this place to make change. Making change to the NDIS is really, really critical for its integrity, operation, efficiency and effectiveness in the future. Major structural changes and reform are absolutely critical, and I think this will be a legacy of this government.

We can do better. We can always improve, and this is what this bill is about. It's about improving the NDIS for the local community. I want to stress to NDIS participants and their families in my electorate and to the local disability community more widely that reforms will not happen overnight. The review recommendations can take years to implement, and many will need to be co-designed with your participation, as they should be. This bill is just the next step on the journey, albeit a very important one.

The Minister for the NDIS has certainly been out travelling Australia and talking to people with disability in the sector. This included a very successful NDIS forum I hosted with him at the Ipswich Jets League Club last year. It was a completely packed out room, attended by local NDIS clients, carers and providers, and disability advocates. A key piece of feedback from these consultations, including in my electorate, was that we need to build and improve services outside the NDIS. The NDIS can't be the only lifeboat in the ocean. It's not the only game in town.

The Commonwealth is having important conversations with the states and territories about different levels of government working together to make a disability ecosystem that supports all Australians. Not everyone qualifies for the NDIS, and there are people living with some form of disability that need help. The National Cabinet agreed in December last year that states and territories play an important role in developing foundational supports outside the NDIS, and to contribute more to the NDIS from 1 July 2028. I call on states and territories, Labor and coalition, to do better and to do more.

I understand that states have raised some concerns, and that's appropriate. In my home state of Queensland, the Minister for Seniors and Disability Services, Charis Mullen, has talked about the need to get the design of foundational supports right so people can continue to access the supports they need. I agree with Charis, but our intention here is to work with the states and territories. At the same time, the peak body for disability providers, National Disability Services, has warned the number of NDIS registered disability providers in Queensland are struggling with the cost of meeting NDIS quality and care standards and wages, which has resulted in some laying-off of staff, reducing services and closing all together. We saw that. I saw that in my electorate in Kilcoy where Anglicare got out of that provision of disability services. Fortunately, the local people living with disability and their families decided to avail themselves of the tremendous services of ALARA, who were providing services in the Brisbane Valley. They took up that group, play-based, lifestyle support in that area. There are organisations that are opting out, and we need great organisations like ALARA and Focal Community Services to pick up the slack. I thank them for what they do my local community, particularly up in the Brisbane Valley, where areas of geographic isolation make it even more challenging for people with disability.

The NDIS pricing is currently being reviewed, and they have called for an immediate uplift in pricing for the sector to remain viable. I understand the Queensland government was concerned with some providers in regional areas providing complex care and potential NDIS funding shortfalls. In response to this, we have provided budgetary support: we've invested $5.3 million in the budget to undertake preliminary work on NDIS pricing reforms to strengthen transparency, predictability and alignment. Following this work, the government will consider an option for the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority—who have already been advising on pricing in hospitals and aged care—to provide advice on NDIS prices in response to recommendations from the independent review. Ultimately, we're going to work with stakeholders and ensure that people with disability have the best support.

The NDIS, I think, is a bit like Medicare: it's an important, essential safety net for people living with disability, so they can trust this government to protect the scheme and get it back on track. This legislation is about boosting the NDIS watchdog's ability to take compliance action, building on the comprehensive reforms that we've already made to crackdown on fraud, and safeguarding the scheme for participants. I agree with the member for Riverina; there is a need to crackdown on frauds, shysters and crooks in the area, and we are doing that. We have seen too much under the previous coalition government just let go without actually cracking down, and that came through in that forum I referred to earlier. But there is a need for integrity in the process. This is taxpayers' money. People who are living with disability need to get support. We can't have crooks and gangs and other people associated with criminal elements rorting the system to the detriment of people living with disability and to the detriment of taxpayers. I applaud the member for Maribyrnong for that crackdown that is associated with this government's initiatives in relation to these areas.

Following the introduction of the bill, the government initiated a co-design and consultation process with the disability community to make and update the rules and legislative instruments. In December 2023, as part of the initial response, the National Cabinet agreed that this legislation be instituted, and that's what we're doing today. At the core, it paves the way for improvements that put participants back at the heart of the NDIS, and that was the point of the scheme when we originally brought it in under a previous Labor government. The rules are about transforming the scheme and making sure that current and future participants and the perspectives of people living with disability are respected. I am pleased the budget backs in the reforms in the bill, with $468.7 million to better support people living with disability. These measures build on the $213.7 million that we announced earlier this year to fight fraud and co-design NDIS reforms for people living with disability. The budget will drive the implementation of key recommendations from the review, including reforms to the scheme in terms of transparency, participant support, sustainability and service delivery, to get the NDIS back on track. These investments will provide the architecture needed to bring people with disability and governments together to implement these reforms.

A major goal of the government's reform is to manage the scheme's growth and put the scheme on a more sustainable financial footing. Our work in this area is seeing positive green shoots, with the reforms forecast to moderate the growth of the scheme to the tune of $14.4 billion over the forward estimates, offsetting an increase that would have occurred in the absence of government action. That's thanks to the legislative reforms we're undertaking and the efforts we're making through this bill and elsewhere.

There are two practical changes that have helped realise 95 per cent of the projected $14.4 billion reduction. The first is that around two-thirds of these savings come from clamping down on intraplan inflation, which is when a participant's plan is spent sooner than the period for which was agreed, leading to a top-up. The remainder of the savings come from implementing the review's recommendation to change the way participant budgets are set. Instead of constructing a plan brick by brick, we'll look at a person's overall needs and give them a budget, which we expect will save money.

I can assure participants in my community that the government remains totally and utterly committed to the NDIS and no-one's going to be kicked off the scheme. The eligibility hasn't changed. The plans are set the same way and the NDIS funding is still based on your needs. The scheme will remain demand-driven and continue to grow in line with the NDIS Financial Sustainability Framework, which the National Cabinet agreed to in April last year. It will provide an annual growth target of up to eight per cent by 1 July 2026 and further moderation of growth as the scheme matures. Sustainable growth trajectory for the NDIS is critical for the long-term viability and integrity of the scheme, ensuring it will continue to provide life-changing outcomes for future generations of people with disability. The reality is that for much of the last 10 years under the coalition the NDIS was left to grow in a rapid, haphazard way with unchecked fraud and inadequate regulation and safeguards. That's why National Cabinet agreed to address the growing pressures on the scheme last year.

The bill addresses the priority recommendations of the independent review to improve participant experience and return the NDIS to its original intent. The NDIS was founded on the notion that people living with disability should get a fair go; that they should have choice and control over the supports they receive so their life—an abundant, happy, contented life—can be lived to the full. In summary, that's what this legislation is all about: making sure the NDIS goes back to what was intended in 2013. After the damage that was done through the unregulated, haphazard, hopeless approach of the previous government, we're making sure this scheme goes back to what it originally was intended to do.

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024, proposes the most significant changes to the NDIS since it started more than a decade ago. Quite understandably, the disability community and NDIS participants, along with families, carers and NDIS workers, are concerned about the changes proposed. I know from conversations within my own community that this feels like an utter betrayal from the Labor government. A Labor government that has just announced a budget that prioritises handouts to fossil fuel companies, weapons manufacturers and wealthy property investors in turn has ripped funding out of the NDIS. Fourteen point four billion dollars—that's how much the Labor government has chosen to remove from the NDIS.

I think we need to be really clear about what this bill does. This bill threatens the future of the NDIS and the rights of disabled people. Labor had the gall to create it behind closed doors. It bullied representatives from the disability community to sign nondisclosure agreements. That's not genuine co-design. The previous speaker, the member for Blair, talked about co-design, but what has happened here is actually not that; it's a betrayal. Not only have the government ripped the funding out of the NDIS; they're going to make it harder for anyone to access the NDIS. If you're already on a plan, well, guess what? This bill forces every NDIS participant to transition from an old framework plan to a new plan over the next five years. What this means is that every current NDIS participant's future on the scheme is up for question. That is over 600,000 participants needing review. We already know that the NDIS cannot handle the current workload, even with its current funding. It doesn't take a genius to realise that a $14.4 billion funding shortfall and an increase in workload for staff means that people are going to fall through the cracks and suffer. It's so very clear that this is a thinly veiled attempt to remove support for people or just kick them off the NDIS altogether. They are going to restrict what supports are available through the scheme, they are going to remove provisions for individualising plans and they are going to try to standardise assessments. Disability is not standardised and should never be treated as such.

When the Gillard Labor government introduced the NDIS over a decade ago, there were great intentions. At the heart of the NDIS, it was meant to enable each individual disabled person to achieve their goals and aspirations, as the previous speaker, the member for Blair, laid out. But anyone who has tried to get on the NDIS or work with it knows how utterly frustrating it is. The NDIS is run on a bureaucracy-heavy business model, with endless hurdles and hoops for people to jump through. Just when you think you have cleared a hurdle or figured it out, they move the goalposts. This isn't me saying this; this is my constituents telling me about this. People are spending years of their lives crushed and exhausted by trying to navigate the NDIS. This bill's going to make it worse. That's a fact.

I've heard from people in my electorate that they've been kicked out of supported living and are homeless because the NDIS failed to pay their rent in time. Parents have to take time off work because the NDIS refuses to offer any more support for their children. I work with people who have spent thousands of dollars and hours gathering supporting evidence of their condition just for the NDIS to tell them it's not enough. These funds and services are absolutely critical to keeping people well and, in many cases, keeping them alive and allowing them to have a meaningful life.

The government is boasting a $9.6 billion surplus at the moment, but it's taken over $14 billion out of the NDIS. That is a funding black hole now. Essential services will now be completely wiped off the map. Yet Labor has $50 billion for weapons, $174.5 billion for property investors and another $50 billion for fossil fuel subsidies. This is our taxpayer money. All our taxpayer dollars are going to things that destroy, things that make things actually worse for Australians, and yet they cry poor when it comes to funding the very services that offer fundamental, life-saving programs to people. It's devastating to say this, but, on the evidence of the stories that my constituents have told me, the government just doesn't seem to care about these everyday Australians. What is also clear is that they haven't listened to a single story from NDIS participants, because, if they had, they wouldn't be summarily slashing $14 billion from this really important scheme.

I am going to tell you some stories. Here are stories from my electorate. I want them to be on the record because, if these stories are heard by the government and they don't act on them, they have been ignored. Recently I was contacted by a support worker who was working for free because all of the other supports had left the NDIS participant, a person who needed round-the-clock care and had just run out of funds. The support worker had made a number of accelerated emergency action requests with absolutely no response—zilch. This participant, not through any fault of their own, had run out of funds because of a change in circumstance which, according to the service guarantee, had not been processed. Instead of the system flagging that this participant who needs round-the-clock care, as I said, would run out of funds, the NDIS simply let it lapse. For them, it's a number in the system. For this participant, it is quite literally their life.

The NDIS is already failing people, and Labor has chosen to further gut it. I will tell you another story, one about a lovely gentleman from my electorate who unfortunately has been diagnosed with early onset dementia and is cared for by his wife. Finally she was able to go on respite leave to spend some time overseas with family. Despite submitting the funding request, it wasn't processed correctly. Again, this meant the participant was left without funds, meaning there was no money to pay for the respite accommodation. If my office had not intervened, he would have been dropped off at home without any support at all, completely alone.

Finally, I will tell you another sad story I hear far too often—that is, of the sheer mental toll of waiting for approval, jumping through the hoops, being forced to make unnecessary appointments because of an unnecessary plan change. For many this toll is just too much to bear. A young person recently contacted my office from the hospital after they'd attempted to take their own life because of unbearable trauma caused by the outrageous wait times. They had attempted multiple times to access their supports, to access their funds, and the NDIS either did not deem it necessary to reply or outright refused. This bright, amazing young person has been beaten down by a system that was already broken and has now been gutted further, and it has broken them.

The government are saying with this bill, with this budget, that they do not care about you even if you need the NDIS. They don't think you're capable of managing your own life or managing your own plan of funding. It's needlessly and indescribably cruel. Many people on the NDIS already knew the government didn't seem to care about them. This rubs salt in that painful wound. With this budget and the bill, Labor have sent a pretty clear message to disabled people: they do not care about you, about your goals, about your aspirations or about your own agency. That's not good enough for me, it's certainly not good enough for those who need the NDIS and it's not good enough for the Greens. We will not support this bill in its current form.

Libby Coker (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When you think of great Australian policies that have endured and enabled people to thrive, you think of the eight-hour day, you think of Medicare and now, I think it's safe to say, you also think of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the NDIS. Now in its 11th year, the NDIS is a scheme underpinned by principles of inclusion, wellbeing and self-determination for all people with disability. Our government recognises how vital the NDIS is. It was Labor which created the scheme, and it's Labor that is doing the hard work to get the scheme back on track.

This is why I stand here today to support this bill, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024. This bill is about enhancing the NDIS and safeguarding its future so that it is here to support people with disability today, tomorrow and into perpetuity. To shape this new future for our disability community, the bill will establish an enabling architecture for future reform—reform to safeguard the original intent and integrity of the scheme. For the first time legislation will link the definition of 'NDIS supports' to rights under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Another reform relates to the provision of information gathering for eligibility reassessment, enabling the NDIA CEO to have the ability to request and receive information on whether participants meet the access criteria. This will not result in people having to re-prove their disability but will allow the CEO to determine a participant is receiving the most appropriate supports, and the process will take into account difficulties in assessing information. It should be noted that our government will work with the disability community on operating guidance to ensure the system works for people with disability.

Another change involves plan management arrangements where there is a risk for the participant, including financial risk. I want to make it clear the agency has responsibilities here too and will be required to be consistent in its operation with the legislation and the rules. I also stress that consultation with the disability sector and, importantly, with people with disability is vital in developing the detail and implementation of the reforms—because who better to ask, 'How do we fix the NDIS?' than those who it is designed to serve? They know the shortcomings of the scheme better than anyone. They experience the scheme every day, and they should always be at the centre of any consultation relevant to the future of our NDIS. That is a key message from the NDIS review panel, and it's a message that our government takes seriously. It's why we're working hand in hand with the disability community to reform the scheme. While it is a scheme that is vital, we do understand that after 10 years of coalition neglect, the scheme requires work, and we are undertaking that work right now. I would like to thank the minister for the work he has done so far, and will continue to do to enhance the system.

Many in my community have shared their views with me about the NDIS and the review, and have made submissions to it. It's a review that heard from thousands of people with disability; their families and carers; advocates and representative organisations; and providers and workers. They put their trust in the panel. They told their stories and outlined a fresh vision for a more inclusive Australia. On reading the review, I met with Professor Bruce Bonyhady, co-chair of the panel, to talk about the findings and our government's response to the recommendations. Bruce is an amazing person, and his passion is infectious. That afternoon, when I spoke to him, he reiterated a key theme of the review: listen to the call of the disability community. Ten years into the great Australian idea that is the NDIS, the moment has come to renew its promise, to learn from its first decade and to work together to deliver an NDIS that is fit for the future and part of a better Australia for all people with disability.

After a decade of inaction, our government is determined to listen to these voices and to shape that better future which Bruce spoke about. I believe this bill will be a catalyst for that future. It's a bill that fulfils our government's promise for urgent reform—reform that our disability community can no longer wait for. With that urgency, I know many people with disability, their families, carers and support workers have questions about how the bill will work. They want to know how the reforms will close the page on heartbreaking stories that punctuate the history of the NDIS. I've encouraged many of these people to attend recent online information sessions. The stories I've heard have thoroughly reinforced the need for this reform. The committee heard a woman, Halo, in her mid-40s. Halo lives in a rural location, where waiting periods for services can take months or years. She said to me, 'The idea of going without specialist care for so long fills me with dread.' It's hard to imagine the pain and isolation she must feel, and that's why we're undertaking this reform. Living in a remote community is already hard enough, without feeling left behind by the scheme that's meant to be there to support you. Once again, after 10 years of neglect, we are undertaking significant reform.

This bill is vital. It is also where the findings of the NDIS review and the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability come into play, providing significant recommendations that are now under active consideration. These reforms will take thoughtful implementation, and I want to thank the minister once again for undertaking this significant process to enhance the NDIS. There needs to be a thoughtful, measured approach, with reforms undertaken step by step in line with our disability community, including providers and of course participants themselves—we do want them to play an important role in codesign. The budget has provided funding for these reforms: in better planning; in revising the pricing scheme; in improving the participant experience; in returning choice and control to the participant; and in undertaking ways to reduce and, hopefully, abolish the amount of fraud that's occurring in the system—that's important if we're going to sustain the system.

In closing, it's time for the states and territories to play their role. It's time, after 10 years of coalition inaction, that we undertake this important reform so that the NDIS better serves and supports the disability community. And it's time to write a new chapter, one that delivers positive change for all people with disability.

Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If it had not been for the efforts of the minister and especially former prime minister Julia Gillard, there would be no National Disability Insurance Scheme. People with disabilities and their families would still be trying to work their way through an inadequate patchwork of state based assistance. Many previously just fell through the cracks. As the minister put it in his second reading speech, they were 'unseen and unheard, living in the shadows'. One of them was a teenager by the name of Sandy, who Ms Gillard made a point of meeting along with many other people with disabilities as her government set up the scheme. He thanked her for making the establishment of the NDIS a personal priority. The then Prime Minister told parliament in 2013, as she introduced the legislation to give the NDIS its financial underpinning:

Sandy has big dreams for his future, like any teenager, but his future also has some big needs: mobility aids that cost tens of thousands of dollars, personal care to maintain his hygiene, physical therapy to maintain his muscles and his health.

Ms Gillard promised Sandy and others with a disability that they would finally have security and dignity with the introduction of the disability care scheme.

Over the past six years, the idea of a national disability insurance scheme has found a place in our nation's hearts.

In March, we gave it a place in our nation's laws.

Today we inscribe it in our nation's finances.

And there's the rub. At that time, the Gillard government estimated the scheme would need just $8 billion a year in federal funding when fully operational in 2018-19. If only that had turned out to be the case. But, as the Government Actuary warned the previous government in 2021, the NDIS was on track to cost no less than $125 billion 10 years from now, in 2034. In this year's budget, the cost for 2024-25 alone is estimated at $44 billion. That's more than Medicare, at $31 billion; total spending on aged care, at $28 billion; and support for state and territory hospitals, at $27 billion. It is simply unsustainable. It's what happens when the best of intentions lead to a massive program being introduced in haste with open-ended demand and careless administration by previous governments, including inadequate action to stamp out abuse. There are questions of cost, fraud and eligibility that should have been sorted out over the past decade but we are now being called on to fix.

There is also the question of trust. The minister is promising this legislation will be a downpayment in restoring the Gillard government's original vision for the NDIS. Importantly, that means maintaining the trust of participants in the scheme, their families, friends and loved ones. I've spoken to many members of the Goldstein community who do have a trust gap about the scheme. That is being further tested with so much uncertainty surrounding the details of this legislation. There is also the trust of the broader community. Lose that and public confidence and support for the scheme will disappear.

It's no easy task, especially given the bad press the scheme has been receiving for months now—some of it justified, some not—obscuring the extent to which the NDIS has changed the lives of people living with disabilities. Getting financial sustainability of the NDIS in shape must be a priority but not at the expense of the rights and wellbeing of those members of the disabled community who have been doing nothing wrong.

Here, for example, is Elly Desmarchelier, who wrote about her experience with the scheme in the Guardian:

On a personal level, the NDIS has transformed my life.

…   …   …

In the three years before I had the NDIS, I was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) more than half a dozen times for things as common and preventative as a UTI. In the three years since being approved for the NDIS, I have not had a single ICU admission and that's because I have access to the allied health I need to keep me from getting so sick I need a breathing tube to live.

Before the NDIS, I could not envisage a future where I wasn't reliant on my partner and parents to live—I needed their help for basic things such as showers and preparing meals. Now, with the NDIS, I have a team of people who I employ, and my partner and parents can go back to being my family, instead of carers.

My story is not unique.

People with disabilities, their friends, families and supporters campaigned for decades to deliver the NDIS. It continues to exist because thousands of people worked together to advocate and fight for this scheme during the most recent federal election. This is our scheme and, while it is imperfect, we believe in its original promise.

So do I, but it needs fixing, especially the fraud, which appears to be at epidemic levels.

In passing, it's worth noting that the government's overall approach to fraud and corruption is not helping. Kieran Pender from the Human Rights Law Centre points out that, because some charities do not have status under tax law, whistleblowers have no protection. This is yet another reminder that establishing a whistleblower protection authority, which was first suggested to this parliament in 1994 and part of Labor's election platform as recently as 2019, remains a priority and a missing link in fighting corruption and fraud. The minister in this case has been eager to stress that he is not talking about the majority of very good, dedicated service providers, but he's right when he says that it would be a betrayal of NDIS participants if he were to ignore the price gouging and unethical conduct of the small number who are having a lend of the scheme, as he put it.

Two years ago, Michael Phelan, then head of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, estimated that no less than 20 per cent of disability funding in the NDIS was being abused by organised crime groups. Mr Phelan is now the Acting Commissioner of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. Since taking on that role, he reckons that criminal influence could be even worse than he originally thought. With an estimated price tag of $44 billion this financial year, that would mean that at least $8 billion worth of funding intended for people with disability is allegedly being abused by crime syndicates. Unless we bring that to an end and get the spiralling cost of the scheme in general under control, its very existence is at risk. There is reason for hope. As the Grattan Institute's disability program team puts it:

NDIS 2.0 will be better than Mark 1. It could finally banish the existential threat of uncontained cost growth, introduce consistency in the amount of funding each person gets and what they can spend it on, and ensure that only the people that need it will stay on the scheme for life.

The key to the scheme is to make sure that individual needs are recognised. While it's justifiable in the first instance to require periodic assessment, it's absurd to put a similar requirement on a person with a serious and chronic disability. The government promises this legislation will deal with that anomaly. If that is the case, that is as welcome as it is overdue. It causes immense pressure on families to have to constantly reprove that serious disability remains unchanged.

But none of this means that we should be making decisions on this legislation without full and transparent debate and discussion. The wellbeing of the 600-plus thousand people who currently depend on the NDIS should not be dismissed in haste. The Senate inquiry into the legislation only opened six weeks ago and has to report by 20 June, a tight timeframe for such a complex piece of legislation in a very complex policy area. The many submissions make detailed suggestions for improvements to the bill, and they deserve proper consideration. In recent days, the government itself has produced some of its own amendments.

The states insist that they're in no position at this point to meet their responsibilities in developing the foundational supports the Commonwealth is demanding—essentially less intensive services, notably autism and developmental delay in children, to be delivered through health services, early childhood education and schools rather than the NDIS. 'They would say that,' the government might say, but, unless the states can develop the necessary programs, the scheme risks falling over. As the states told the Senate inquiry, without careful design of this ecosystem, 'people with disability will end up in our hospitals or other settings that are unsuitable for their needs.' To date there has been no decision as to the specific services that will be provided as foundational supports or the client groups who should access them. At the moment, it's not clear what the difference in application pathway, assessment and supports will be for a child with autism who will be applying to the NDIS in 2025 versus a child with the same level of need who was applying in early 2024. States and territories expect this level of detail will be work through later this year, but it is not available now.

Federal-state relations are littered with examples of cost shifting and arguments over who is responsible for what. The Commonwealth is suspicious that, over the past decade, the states have been pushing people onto the NDIS and decommissioning programs for which they should have maintained responsibility. The fact that currently no less than 12 per cent of boys aged between five and seven are NDIS participants would appear to give some weight to the Commonwealth's suspicion, and recent data suggests that the prospect of legislative change has encouraged families to rush to secure funding for children with autism and developmental delay. In the December quarter of last year, official data showed that 11 per cent more children had been signed up than had been assumed would be, totalling nearly 10,000, with average payments 19 per cent higher than anticipated. On the other hand, it's going to take time to work through complex arrangements with the states and, if the multiple jurisdictions are going to reach resolution, delegated legislative instruments are the only realistic pathway.

The government insists that it has no intention of dumping people off the scheme, but it defies common sense to think that savings in the order of $14 billion can be achieved merely by reducing fraud and cost gouging. Stakeholders are very concerned that this legislation flips the underpinning principles of reasonable and necessary support and reduces choice and control for participants, eroding the principle that, once funding and support are received, participants should have maximum agency. They argue that, even with recent government amendments, section 10 overly empowers the minister to determine what is or is not an NDIS support. I don't doubt the good intentions of this minister, but that situation may leave the scheme wide open to erosion under a future minister or future administration.

There's also the question of the 90-day timeframe for professional assessments of need. As my colleague, the member for Kooyong, has pointed out, and she should know, this simply 'does not reflect the reality of health care in this country' where waiting lists to see specialists can be months long. The minister seeks to assure us that no-one will suffer as a consequence. That's all very well, but once again we're being asked to take a very important element of the legislation on trust, and we're being asked to assume that it will also be the view of a future administration. In fact, the minister is asking us to take not just that but several elements in this legislation on trust, and I do worry whether good intentions are enough. It's arguable that good intentions a decade ago are why we're being asked to fix so many things at once in this legislation.

Despite the reservations I've expressed, I am inclined to support this bill, but only subject to satisfactory amendments and greater clarity from the government.

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think everyone in this place wants to make sure that all Australians can achieve their full potential, and that is what this bill, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024, tries to do. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this bill. It's another step forward under the Labor government towards committing to make Australia a fairer and better place for all Australians and towards cementing the sustainability of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It's a step forward to securing the longevity of the scheme. It's a step forward to ensuring a future where all Australians with disabilities are valued and included members of our community. This bill is a critical piece of legislation that will get the NDIS back on track. I acknowledge the minister for the work he has done to make this happen.

When the Albanese government was elected in 2022, the NDIS was not working as it should. Don't get me wrong: it worked for some. But it did not work for many, and that was typical of the direction taken under the watch of the Liberal government. It meant that some people who needed support were missing out, and they were getting left behind. This Albanese Labor government wants to make sure that no-one is left behind.

We committed to making and governing decisions to benefit all Australians, not just the privileged few. Those people who were overlooked by the NDIS under the Liberals were forgotten; they were not living to their full potential. They did not have access to the support and opportunities they needed to have the quality of life that they deserved. Our government made a commitment to that and to make a positive difference. Our goal is to make sure that the NDIS works more effectively and to fix the system. I'm proud to say that that's what we're doing. This legislation puts in place the measures that are needed to get the NDIS back on track to support the 660,000 Australians who access the NDIS to receive the services they need to live a fulfilling life—to be included and to make a positive contribution to our community. The bill provides a framework for the 400,000 people who work in the NDIS to fulfil their jobs effectively and consistently. These workers are the lifeblood of our community services. They do an amazing job and we need to make sure they have the systems in place to support and not hinder the important work that they do. We need to make sure that we reward them fairly and help them to feel supported. We must work together to make this happen so that the NDIS is achieving what it set out to do: to enable people with disability to gain independence, gain access to new skills and have greater work opportunities, or to volunteer in our community. It's about improving the quality of life for people with disability and also their health and wellbeing.

The NDIS supports around 80,000 children across the country. The support from the NDIS for these children means they're able to access the support they need to develop and thrive. I'll take a moment to talk about a stunning example of this practice in my home in Swan. Dr Dayna Pool is a pioneering figure in the neurological rehabilitation space. She founded an organisation called the Healthy Strides Foundation. As a result of her revolutionary work, children who have been told they would never walk again are back on their feet. A notable success story is one of her clients, a young person called Palmer, who would normally take 2½ minutes to walk 10 metres. After six weeks of the program at the Healthy Strides Foundation, he was able to do his 10-metre journey in only 17 seconds. I think that is just amazing! Palmer is walking tall, confidently and proudly, and he is taking healthy strides towards a fulfilling life. Healthy Strides now employs 22 clinicians. It's serving 300 programs annually and has a six-month waitlist. Dayna is one of the many worthy nominees for Western Australian of the Year in the community category. As her nomination says, she has put WA firmly on the world stage for helping wheelchair-bound children walk.

Dayna has a simple wish: for all kids to be accepted in their communities. This last statement from Dayna says everything about her. It's a wish that I share and embrace as a mother, and as a member of parliament, and that's why I stand behind this bill. Before the NDIS was set up, people with disabilities were not included; they were not accepted in our community. The minister recognised this in his second reading speech. He said that people with disabilities were treated like second-class citizens before the NDIS. The NDIS has made a difference, but unfortunately, under the previous government's ineptitude, the NDIS went off track, and we're at risk of that happening again. That's why we're getting it back on track. To create the NDIS was to make sure that anyone with a disability would be treated like a full citizen of this country. What we want to do is inspire hope and a brighter future, just like what Dayna Pool said, and has done with Healthy Strides in Swan.

How will we do this? This bill will ease frustration by engaging NDIS providers and participants. It will do this by clarifying the process for reassessing participant status, allowing participants to transition to a new framework plan by providing new framework plans with a flexible budget. There will be a budget for specified supports. Old framework plans have a total funding amount. We're also working to stamp out fraud. The bill updates the conditions under which the NDIS will manage funds. It will also require participants to spend money solely on NDIS supports in line with their plans. It also exempts NDIS rules from sunsetting. The bill will also impose conditions on approved quality auditors to not employ or engage individuals with a banning order. It will also expand the delegation powers of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission.

The changes that the legislation will put in place are based on meeting the goals of the government for the NDIS: firstly, to ensure the NDIS will provide a better experience for participants, with less frustration, less anxiety, less bureaucracy; secondly, to restore the scheme to meet its original purpose, to support people with disabilities; thirdly, to make sure that no-one gets overlooked or left behind; and, lastly, to make sure that there is a future for the NDIS, one that inspires hope and creates fulfilment. The government is committed to working together with the disability sector to implement these changes—collaboration and consultation, not a top-down approach but co-design. That's the difference between this government and the previous one—involving people in the development of policies that affect them rather than shutting them out.

It won't be quick and it will take time to make sure that we implement changes that are fit for purpose and to ensure that people who are directly impacted by these decisions we are making in the government are involved in the rollout of the reforms. We will also involve the states and territories, because we understand that implementation at the front line is critical to ensuring a smooth transition under these reforms. I understand the critical importance of the reforms proposed by the bill, and I genuinely hope that those opposite understand it too. So I hope that, instead of saying no to building a better future for the NDIS, they say yes, and, instead of saying no to securing a future where people with disabilities can reach their full potential, they say yes, and, instead of saying no, they say yes to a future for people with disabilities, a future that is filled with opportunity and acceptance. How can you say no to that? I commend the bill to the House.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024. This is a really huge budgetary item. It is a very large program. On the first occasion I ran to represent the people of Lyne, back at the 2010 election, the NDIS was just a discussion point, with the disability system run essentially by the states. But the deal was put together, where the states would contribute their current disability services budget to the Commonwealth, and it would all be bundled together. The Commonwealth would run the scheme, and people with a disability who were missing out or getting inadequate service under the state schemes would get a better deal out of it. It went through before I was elected in 2013, with bipartisan support.

Everyone wants the scheme to survive and do well, but this bill and the sentiment behind it have a mismatch between what is spoken about and what the actual costs are. There are many people who are concerned about the increasing numbers of entrants that used to be covered by the Health portfolio now appearing in the NDIS portfolio costs. There has been a rapid exit from any disability care by many states, which were expected to remain and be involved in some broad general foundational supports, which the minister talked about after the last COAG meeting.

In the last budgetary figures that I have here before me, the revenue that the NDIA receives will increase from $46 billion in 2024 to $59.3 billion by 2027-28. There have been subsequent other appropriations announced since this was printed, and that goes to the issue that everyone is talking about, which is the sustainability of the system. I served on the NDIS oversight committee in my first term of parliament and at that stage it was some $20 billion for the whole program, but people were still being enrolled. There are far more people coming onto the scheme than was planned. The idea that the states still bear some responsibility for normal developmental and foundational supports is very essential because the federal Commonwealth can't afford to keep this exponential increase in costs. In the budgetary statements, there was also the insurance agency itself with negative budgetary appropriations in 24-25, 25-26, 26-27 and 27-28. The sustainability issue requires much more tightening.

What we've seen in my electorate is a pre-existing huge disability care network based around the beautiful city of Taree, because of very philanthropic minded organisations that were set up in the sixties and seventies. First disability education, then disability employment services and disability housing—all through philanthropy. The Machin family were at the forefront, and many other prominent citizens of the Manning Valley. A lot of people moved into that region because it was quite a stand-out. There were many places that didn't have those sorts of services and Valley Industries has grown exponentially with it.

Across the country there are many existing similar philanthropic based organisations that seem to have been washed away with the change to the federal funding scheme. A lot of new entrants, who provide disability services, have taken all the easy physical disability services and left the philanthropic, long-term organisations dealing with all the difficult and challenging cases. With the increase in budgets, however, some of the more difficult and challenging high-cost people are having their packages shrunk. Yet there are very generous packages for those that have simpler and easier-to-provide services.

The system will need a lot of financial reanalysis. The minister has spoken at length about getting it back on track, and everyone does want it to get back on track because if it keeps going at this rate it will become unsustainable and we'll have to go back to square one. I call on the government to start the conversations with the states and the NDIA to not just slow the rate of increase, which is planned and will hopefully save $14 billion from the expected increase, but to actually get a tighter control of the charges that are being charged by providers of care in the NDIS. A lot of my NDIS participants come to me and say, 'Before the NDIS, my catheters used to cost this or my wheelchair used to cost this, but now it takes me months to try and get something out of the NDIS to replace it, and the charges are double or more what I used to pay.' That's part of the reason why the costs are there. We're all familiar with the fraud committed by pop-up organisations that aren't doing what they're meant to do. All those things need to be addressed, but the fundamental thing is that a lot of the excesses for what is covered have been elaborated on by the shadow minister and by people on the other side of the House. We really need to pay much greater attention to things than just slowing the rate. We need states on board and we need to explain to people what's reasonable.

This side of the House is concerned about the stories we've all heard in our own electorates about people getting enormous packages and having weekends in Sydney or going on holiday and taking their carer with them, paying huge amounts for luxuries. Their quality of life is going to improve, but it's the essential and necessary budget that's important—not the ideal situation where you can get sexual services. You can take people on long holidays and you can do all these things that weren't really the intent of the scheme. Those are the things that we need to control, and also the criteria which get people onto the scheme. In my experience, there are many people who seem eminently suitable for the NDIS to me but they spend thousands of dollars getting all their reports together and then they get knocked back. But other people seem to have a different assessor and get on. I think: 'How did you end up on a long-term package when you already had the disability support pension and you've already recovered from whatever the problem was? Yes, you have an impairment but you've got onto the scheme over this person.' I don't know what it is about the criteria, whether it's the assessors or the genuine natures of the reports that are assembled, but there are many issues in the NDIS that we need to get on top of. Otherwise, we will continue this exponential increase in costs, with the states totally absenting themselves from early childhood development, where there are some children who may be on the spectrum, or who may not be on the spectrum. All that needs to be addressed. If we don't actually state that, we'll never actually make the NDIS sustainable in the long term.

Tracey Roberts (Pearce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No.1) Bill 2024. In doing so, I wish to acknowledge the hardworking commitment of the minister and everyone involved in providing critical advice so that we can help to secure the future of the NDIS.

The NDIS stands out as one of our nation's most significant social reforms in recent history. It aims to provide Australians living with disability the necessary support and resources to lead fulfilling lives. Its inception traces back to a culmination of advocacy, policy debate and recognition of the need for a more equitable and person-centred approach to disability support. As the minister stated in his speech, the Labor government in 2009 commissioned a report entitled Shut out to help the government move the analysis and debate about people with disability in Australia. He said that what was uncovered was intensely moving and profoundly shocking as it painted a picture of people with a disability being isolated and alone—their lives a constant struggle for resources and support. Further, an article written about this report at the time said, 'People were now finding themselves shut out—shut out from housing, employment, education, health care, recreation and sport; shut out of kindergartens, schools, shopping centres and community groups.' This is clearly unacceptable.

The roots of the NDIS can be found in Australia's long history of disability policy and advocacy. Prior to the establishment of this scheme, disability services in Australia were fragmented and inconsistent across states and territories. Many individuals with disability faced significant barriers in assessing necessary supports, leading to disparities in outcomes and opportunities. The efforts to reform disability support were fuelled by the growing understanding of disability as a social issue requiring systemic change, rather than merely a medical or individual concern. Following extensive consultation and negotiation, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 was passed by the Australian parliament, with bipartisan support. The act laid the groundwork for the NDIS, outlining its objectives, governance structure and funding arrangements.

The NDIS officially commenced its rollout in 2013, starting with trial sites across various locations in Australia. These trials allowed for the testing of different aspects of the scheme, including eligibility criteria, planning processes and service delivery models. The insights gained from the trials informed the ongoing refinement and implementation of the NDIS on a national scale. Since its inception, the NDIS has progressively expanded its coverage, with around 660,000 participants currently.

The scheme operates on the principle of individualised funding, whereby participants have greater control and choice over the supports and services they receive. As we are aware, central to the NDIS is the concept of choice and control, empowering participants to determine their goals and aspirations and make decisions about how they wish to achieve them. The person centred approach represents a change in thinking in disability support, moving away from one-size-fits-all towards greater flexibility and responsiveness to individual needs and preferences. People with disability should have the support they need to participate in our community. They deserve a fair go.

While the NDIS has brought about significant improvements in the lives of many Australians with a disability, it has also faced challenges and criticisms, and, frankly, has not delivered on its original vision. Dealing with the NDIS should not be a battle, and you most certainly should not have to prove year after year that you still have a disability. As the minister stated, the Albanese Labor government promised to make the NDIS a priority and not penalise people with disability for wanting to live fulfilled lives; promised to put more people with disability on the NDIA Board and conduct a root-and-branch review of the scheme; promised to make the scheme sustainable so that future generations of Australians with disability would have an NDIS to access; promised to ensure that every dollar was going to people for whom it was intended—NDIS participants; and promised to restore trust in the scheme. It is encouraging that work has begun to ensure that we deliver on our promises, but, while our government has achieved a lot in a short period, there is more to do.

The bill before the House amends the 2013 act to do the following things. It will require the National Disability Insurance Agency to provide participants with a clear statement of the basis on which they entered the NDIS, by meeting either the disability requirements, the early intervention requirements or both. It will clarify and expand the NDIS rules relating to access provisions. It will create the new reasonable and necessary budget framework for the preparation of NDIS participants' plans. It will provide for the needs assessment process and the method for calculating the total amount of the participant's flexible funding and funding for stated supports for new framework plans to be specified in legislative instruments and NDIS rules. These will be developed in consultation with people with disability, the disability community, health and allied health technical professionals and with all states and territories. It will insert a new definition of 'NDIS supports', which will provide a clear definition of the authorised supports that will be funded by the NDIS and those that will not. And it will insert measures focused on protecting participants.

As the minister has indicated, this bill is only a first step in the process of reform outlined in the NDIS review panel report, and there remains an enormous amount of work to do, together, to implement the reforms. The Albanese government are committed to engaging and consulting with people with a disability, their families and carers, representative organisations, service providers, unions and the broader community to help us achieve the four goals as outlined: (1) that the NDIS provide a better experience for participants, (2) that the scheme be restored to its original intent to support people with significant and permanent disability, (3) that the scheme be equitable, and (4) that the scheme be sustainable.

I have listened to my constituents living with disability and heard of their frustrations in dealing with the scheme. My constituents know their disability best, and the scheme needs to acknowledge this. That said, everyone will need to manage their NDIS budget, and we will be clear about what supports can and cannot be funded by the NDIS to help participants make informed choices. To provide reassurance, the minister, in his second reading speech, stated:

If you have a significant and permanent disability which has quite an impact on your functioning, you will be covered by the NDIS. If you have a developmental delay which can be supported by a means of support other than an individual package, you will get what you need.

I also reflect on the task ahead and some of the issues faced by people living with a disability. A local resident wrote to me recently about the disability sector often being overlooked and issues not being addressed. She raised the need for adequate toilet facilities, saying there are only a few changing places where there is a toilet that is suitable for those with severe mobility issues, and that these should be provided at every major shopping centre and all libraries so that people with a disability are not treated any differently. She raises concerns about the rights to an education and said her daughter is basically babysat at school, with no-one held accountable for inappropriate comments or mistakes, and that we should ensure that places are made available for suitable courses for people with intellectual disability. My constituent wants actions at the coalface so that people with disability can finally be proud of who they are and not feel marginalised, stating, 'My daughter has the right to become a valuable citizen in the local community and has the same rights to access all the social determinants of health as those who don't have an intellectual disability.

There are often particular challenges living on the fringe of a metropolitan city, where services can be limited. Within my electorate of Pearce is an example: residents in Two Rocks and Yanchep living with disability come to mind, as I know that their choices are often not as comprehensive as those living elsewhere. I am, therefore, hoping that as the NDIS reforms progress, we are able to increase the number of providers who can offer high-quality support for my local residents living with a disability, especially where services are currently somewhat limited.

It is clear from issues raised with me and from reports we have received that there are still many challenges ahead that cover many facets of living with a disability and of society as a whole. In terms of this bill, it is important for us to progress reforms, as the NDIS remains a beacon of hope for people with disability and their families. It embodies Australia's commitment to social inclusion, equality and dignity for all citizens.

There is hope. Sally, a constituent with MS, recently wrote to me about her NDIS experience, saying that, while she found the application form a little intimidating, she went to an agency which made it simple, and was surprised at just how quickly she was approved, and was happy with the process. She said understanding the different categories on her plan was confusing; however, she felt she had much support with account management and more from her support coordinator and client liaison coordinator, which is pleasing to know. Sally said accepting support did not come easy for her, but she had come to realise that for her it had proven to be essential and relieved any concerns that she had. Sally advised that she was still assessing different categories and applying for aids within her home, and that her OT was amazing and extremely helpful. She recently secured hand rails for her shower and entry way through the NDIS, and says she could not explain just what a difference these small aids had made to her living. She gave thanks to the NDIS for making her life better now, knowing it would do so in the years ahead.

The Albanese Labor government wants every Australian like Sally to live a life of independence and dignity, and I want all my constituents in Pearce with a disability to enjoy community life, being connected to others, having improved and knowing that they are safe and supported. For me, it is about basic human rights: no-one wants to feel excluded, shut out for everything that other Australians take for granted. As the scheme continues to evolve and mature, it holds the potential to transform not only the disability support system but also all attitudes and perceptions towards disability in Australian society, which is incredibly important. I commend the bill to the House.

Stephen Bates (Brisbane, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No.1) Bill 2024. The Greens see that this bill threatens the future of the NDIS and the rights of disabled people in Australia. The National Disability Insurance Scheme was designed to help. Its goal was to provide funding to eligible people with disabilities to gain greater independence, to access new skills, to be more immersed in their communities and, ultimately, to improve quality of life. Unfortunately, as time has gone on, we have seen more and more delays, with participants ending up in some dire situations.

Before delving into this bill, I would like to share the experiences of some of my constituents in the Brisbane community.

One constituent recently reached out to my electorate office for support with her NDIS application. After sustaining a new permanent injury last year, this constituent lodged a change-of-circumstances review in January to flag that she would require significantly increased support, particularly with physiotherapy, podiatry, support worker hours, assistive technology, home modifications and other allied health services. At the same time, this constituent had already been experiencing mishandling from her plan manager, including having invoices not paid on time, making it seem like she had more funding than was actually available. Her increased support needs, the reported misconduct of her plan manager and the significant delay it took for the NDIA to assess the change-of-circumstances request meant that her plan ran out of funding earlier this month. This constituent followed all the correct and available methods of escalation but was left in a dire situation without any formal support. She has been unable to feed and shower herself since May. This is unacceptable.

After multiple interventions from my office with the members and senators contact office, this constituent finally received a new plan, but of course it was not up to scratch. This new plan didn't consider any of the requests made in her change-of-circumstances review request and seems to be punishing her for reporting her plan manager's misconduct. The new plan also means she is unable to access her existing support team, so essentially she is still without any formal support.

I'd like to detail some of the discrepancies in the outcome of her review request because we are seeing this time and time again. Firstly, the plan was moved to NDIA management. This constituent's existing support team, including her allied health supports, her psychologist and her support workers, are not NDIS registered. Switching her plan to NDIA management has meant she has no ability to access her existing support teams, depriving her of her choice and control. We've seen this with cases very often. Participants have no other option than a slow and costly process to establish new supports.

Secondly, the new plan cuts back on supports she was previously funded for. Most notably, funding for assistive technology was slashed by more than half the previous amount. The new plan seems to deem this constituent's home unsuitable because of modifications required, failing to take into account the very obvious fact that, due to her disabilities, no home is going to be suitable without modifications. Critically, it also blatantly ignores that this constituent is a survivor of domestic violence and she needed to choose a safe location where her abusers were unlikely to access her. The new plan declined her assistive technology requests, which were supported by an occupational therapist, and home modification requests.

Lastly, this new plan restricted my constituent's ability to travel as part of her work. This again runs counter to core pillars of the NDIS: choice, control and support to pursue goals and participation in the community and in employment. This change will prevent her being able to continue her work in an important nonprofit, another area that was clearly stated in her goals but seemingly ignored.

Ultimately, this is just one of many stories my team have dealt with. What is especially concerning is the escalation in both the number of cases and their intensity, with wait times that seem to blow out further and further.

While advocating for our constituents, my office and staff have encountered a number of other issues with the NDIS. Delays seem to be absolutely rampant. We have seen participants and their support networks applying for NDIS change of circumstances and other reviews with plenty of time to spare. This includes providing a plethora of evidence for their support needs and expensive reports from experts in their care, all timely and all in order. And yet many have had to wait so long for a response from the NDIS that their funding completely runs out, leaving them in the lurch. In many instances, this means they have to rely on either pro bono support from providers or on family, many with their own full-time jobs and their own responsibilities to manage, or ultimately be left completely alone, unable to feed, dress or shower themselves and maintain basic hygiene. Unfortunately, this often means these people are left in imminent danger of self-harm or causing harm to others due to heightened behaviours when unsupported.

The NDIS have clearly not been taking a substantive view of all evidence supplied to them in reviews and initial applications into consideration. We have had planners say to our constituents, 'I had to google your diagnosis; I'd never heard of it,' and participants be told they're overspending, as if it is some sort of shopping spree. This is the experience of too many who have extensively evidenced their need for relevant support in their plans. The NDIS is so difficult to navigate, especially at the appeals and review stages. It is so difficult, in fact, that there are dedicated community—

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm sorry. The debate has to be interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour, and, if you wish to continue your comments when the debate is resumed, leave will be granted.